What makes a shardblade a shardblade?

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

I must apologize to @therunner for making a separate post to continue this disussion but I feel like the vs battles get less traction due to the somewhat monotonous and simetimes contentious nature of them and I would like to hear other opinions on this side conversation from one of those. The question was initially about the ability for metalminds to block shardblade strikes. After many WoBs being pulled out I think my mind has become more open to shardblades destroying metalminds after some amount of blows. However this leads me to more questions and perhaps a newer theory on invested objects. I will provide large quotes in spoilers for those who wish to be caught up on the discussion from the other post but my question at the end of this pretty well stands on its own. 

Spoiler

22 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

This is a thing I have thought about a lot. 

How does investiture block a shardblade? I dont know that is is the investiture itself so much as invested materials used to make the object / item. Investiture doesnt block the blade.  Investiture blocks the magical cutting of a shardblade. The material is what matters for blocking blades. 

A highly invested awakened cloth may be able to grab onto a shardblade lastclap style but if the blade were to hit the cloth it would cut it like any other sharp sword would cut through that cloth. 

The type of investiture surely matters: 

Stormlight leaks quickly from broken gems and the brutal blows of a shardblade to crack what is holding that stormlight are why halfshards and deadplate have issues.  Living plate surrounding a radiant who is using light constantly obviously will heal those cracks faster (perhaps as they happen). Those cracks in deadplate and halfshards arent healing quickly or efficiently enough to matter in the long run. Deadplate can regrow itself with stormlight but nowhere near as fast as living plate. 

Metalminds dont lose investiture when they are broken or cut. Feruchemical storage seems to be very very sticky. (Much the same as breaths would be to cloth but this is to metal). I imagine feruchemically charged metalminds would be able to constantly withstand blows from a shardblade and never lose that ability as shardblades don't actually leech investiture. The metalmind would not last all that long as armor against heavy meaningful blows from a shardblade but the failure would be due to deformation not a lack of being able to stop the magical cutting ability of the blade. 

The advantage of having metalminds as armor would be that you can heal the damage underneath as normal blunt force damage. Until the blade could naturally break through the metalmind there will be no magical cutting ability no matter how many blows are delivered as metalminds dont leak investiture and shardblades arent leeching in anyway.

It is far better to have your spren turn into a blunt weapon to deform the metalmind as quickly as possible than to keep swinging with a sword hoping to sever the spine of someone wearing protective metalmind armor. 

I go back and forth on what is most efficient for the fullborn / feruchemist but I do believe chainmail made entirely of metalminds would be the best option as you could probably fill it faster and it is harder to deform while providing plenty of protection from the cutting edge of a shardblade. 

 

If there is any evidence that shardblades do leech investiture vs just breaking things and it leaking out I am willing to change my mind on this but given that metalminds can be seperated and split up without losing power (just having it split with the metalmind) I really don't think a shardblade breaking a metalmind would do anything to that metalminds ability to stop the cutting edge with either half next time as well. 

The only reason we see plate and halfshards work the way we do is because stormlight is not sticky and leaks freely when not contained in a perfect gem or piece of plate. When the plate or gems get cracked the investiture granting them magical protection flows out of them as freely as water does when poured out of a container. The bigger the crack the bigger the pour spout. 

 

The best magical protection from shardblades is metalmind / awakened chainmail on top of padding (If an awakened piece of padded clothing can be worn underneath the chainmail to provide it the ability to move thus making it harder to break that is even better). The gold healing of a person wearing this type of magical armor would certainly prove to be a huge boon and since chainmail can easily be worn covering the entirety of the spine then a fullborn with this in place would be virtually immune to a spine severing blow anyways. 

You would have to actively leech the investiture from the metalminds and shardblades dont leech. 

Spoiler

15 hours ago, therunner said:

I don't think that is it.

One, in half-shard the fabrial is one the opposite side, so is completely shielded by the actual material of the shield, and even then non-plated Shardblade wielder can break them in two blows.
Two, Shardplate section can withstand minutes of superahuman blows from multiple assailants, will withstand bullets well, and yet 2-3 hits from Shardblade brake a section, even when opponent does not have Shardplate.

In both scenarios the material breaks despite the supernatural cutting being negated through material being Invested (and in the second case Shardplate is far harder than most metals and is also much more Invested than any metalmind), but it still breaks far faster then when attacked by non-Shardblade. So clearly, being Invested is insufficient protection against Shardblade.

So something else must be going on. Since Shardblade cuts on all 3 realms, I would wager that even though the Investiture in the objects prevents it from being penetrated by Shardblade, the hit still damages it on cognitive and spiritual Realms. I.e. the Investiture/spiritweb of the objects gets damaged.

And we only have WoBs that Invested objects resist being cut, not that they are immune to being cut. So I would conclude that somehow Shardblade damages the Spiritual aspect of the metalmind, and so degrades (not leeches) the Investiture within it. You can still use it to block, but I bet it will get damaged and it would eventually fail.

Edit: And this WoB literally says that metalmind will break after repeated hits from Shardblade

 

Spoiler

13 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

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Questioner

Since you have basically established that spren are at least to some extent alive, how is it possible for a Shardblade to not cut right through a living weapon, like Syl for example.

Brandon Sanderson

What you are seeing is: when they are pulling through into the Physical Realm they are creating something that is not 100% physical, not 100% metal, it's like an amalgamation of the two. And that is doing something very special that then prevents other things from cutting through it. It's specifically the way that it's happening. You could make this happen with other things too.

Another big part of it is the amount of Investiture. If something is highly Invested it's going to stop a Shardblade too, because the Investiture is gonna kinda bounce off of each other. It's theoretical, for instance, you could make a Hemalurgic spike that would stop a Shardblade...

So, Invest something highly and it will stop a Shardblade almost always. But, you can cut souls; they are highly Invested also. So you need something in the Physical Realm that is pulling power through from the other Realms.

Bonn Signing (May 15, 2019)

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Bridge4AM (paraphrased)

What would happen if you tried to cut aluminum with a shardblade?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

A shardblade would not cut aluminum.

Footnote: This contradicts a previous WoB where Brandon said shardblades could cut aluminum. This contradiction is addressed here.
An Evening with Brandon Sanderson (Feb. 1, 2017)

 

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Yata

Hi, the community has a [question], we have two WoBs: Shardblades can cut aluminum and Shardblades can't cut it. Which one is true?

Brandon Sanderson (Part 1/Part 2/Part 3)

Hm. Yes, I wondered last night if I'd ever answered this before. Truth is, the answer is contentious at Team Sanderson.

I've been pushing for one answer, but Peter (whom I trust) is pushing back. We will see what ends up in the books as canon.

Problem with magic like I do is sometimes you have to wait for the scientific consensus... Err on "no" for now.

Peter Ahlstrom (Part 1/Part 2/Part 3)

Oh, I think aluminum would stop Shardblades from magical cutting. But if it's too thin like foil, a sword...

...would cut it anyway. What I'm arguing is that something else that Shardblades don't cut doesn't need...

...to necessarily be made of aluminum, for various reasons.

Yata

For example Invested objects (metalmind,spike,etc) or polestones (from some SA's Quote) ?

Peter Ahlstrom

RAFO

Footnote: The two conflicting WoBs can be found here and here. Also the "something else" that Peter was referring to is likely the Shardblade guards, which have since been confirmed to not be aluminum.
General Twitter 2017 (Feb. 3, 2017)

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Questioner

Shardblades cut organic and inorganic matter differently. How would they interact with an animated construct like an Awakened straw man? What about a Lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

So I walk kind of a fine line here. Something that's animated as a construct, like an Awakened straw man, is likely going to block the Shardblade to some extent, as powerful Investiture would. A Lifeless is probably just gonna act like it was a living being.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

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Questioner

Could a mindblade break a Shardblade? Could a mindblade stop a Shardblade, or would a Shardblade stop a mindblade?

Brandon Sanderson

I think that a Shardblade would stop a mindblade. And whether the mindblade could stop the Shardblade or not would depend on the power of the cytonic and how strong their mind is.

FanX 2021 (Sept. 18, 2021)

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WeiryWriter

Does hair that is still attached to a person's head get cut if a Shardblade passes through it? If not, if that person had the Royal Locks could they change the color of the hair "below" the cut?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, hair gets cut. It counts as dead in my mind--but not to someone who has the Royal Locks. They could only change below, as you state, and wouldn't get their hair chopped off. (I'm not 100% sure on this, but I Think I've mentioned in Stormlight before that you can cut things like shells on living animals with a Shardblade, but then it doesn't cut the flesh.)

WeiryWriter

With the Royal Locks, the individual would be able to change the color in the bit between the cut and the scalp? (In my original question I had meant "below" to mean the bit between the cut and the end whereas your answer uses it the opposite, I think?)

Brandon Sanderson

Distance between scalp and cut, yes you can change that. Otherwise every time you got a haircut, you wouldn't be able to change the hair. Maybe I don't get your question.

WeiryWriter

So just for clarity's sake is the following correct:

Let's say Siri's hair is two feet long. A shardblade passes through the hair exactly in the middle ("dividing" the hair into two one-foot sections). In your previous answer you said that while usually the shardblade would just sever the hair (leaving only a foot attached to the head) with the Royal locks the entire two feet would remain attached but only the foot on the "head" side of the cut would be able to change color.

Thank you, I just want to make sure there is zero doubt in what is actually going on.

Brandon Sanderson

I did misinterpret your original question. As a shardblade cut is likely to be wider than a piece of hair, I doubt you could cut the royal locks lengthwise.

Footnote: It appears that Brandon most assuredly did not understand the question.
/r/books AMA 2015 (March 12, 2015)

Okay I know that this is just a word dump of WoBs but they all discuss shardblades cutting power.  

 

I am slightly torn after reading them.  

I wanted to believe that investiture fueled items would work like aluminum to block a shardblade.  

In one WoB it says the straw man would be able to block a shardblade but in my mind a sword cuts through straw so this confuses me.  Then again we see regular swords cutting through awakened cloth so the investiture in an awakened object blocks shardblades but not a simple sword?  

Metalminds obviously can block a shardblade but how long?  My issue is that we see plate leaking stormlight when it is getting cracked and broken no matter if it is hit by a rock or hit by a shardblade.  So plate acts more brittle than steel. Steel would have much more give and a layer of rivited mail made of steel would have even more give than a steel plate to a physical attack.  If it absorbs the physical aspects of weapon blows then we really need to understand the mechanism for shardblades destroying half shards and plate.  

I get that half shards and plate act like this but the way they respond to physical attacks is not so different as you pointed out... it just takes more of them.  

Would a layer of locks protect a persons neck from a slice from a shardblade?  Would the straw man be cut in half from the blade?  

In the case of aluminum the blade acts just like a sword vs the aluminum and if the aluminum is not thick enough to withstand the physical blow the blade goes right through it.  

If investirure simply gets leeched (again the plate pouring out stormlight hints in my mind that there is no leeching happening) and the investiture blocks the shardblade attack physical attack and all, then an awakener with layers of awakened clothing might fare far better than someone behind a halfshard right? Even if each layer required 2 attacks to get through it really wouldn't be much layering before your average awakener has more protection than shardplate.  

Metalminds don't leak investiture when broken at all.  If there are 15 hrs of speed stored in an earing and you cut it in half then you have 2 halves of an earing holding 7.5 hrs of stored speed.  The types of investiture are different.  

 

Though I do appreciate the idea of the shardblade separating the parts of the item.  

Is investiture really working that way though?  If stormlight were being separated from the items physical and spiritual why would plate leak no matter what is striking it?  

Would shot placement make no difference in this case?  Perhaps the shardblade is simply bludgeoning the investiture off of all of the items?  

Sadly we haven't really seen any examples of a shardblade hitting something and then that thing being measured for its investiture.  

Personally I feel like it makes sense that invested items would work more like aluminum but then again... a straw man could stop a shardblade according to WoB.  

Maybe awakeners vs shardbearers is a better match than I thought.  

As for feruchemists and shardblade blocking... I honestly don't know. The aluminum chainmail is definately a favorite for shardblade sparring though.  

Also I never knew this and find it interesting as well.  The magical cutting of shardblades exists thanks to Brandon not wanting such a gorey entry for Szeth into the world:

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Argent

Shardblades burn out the eyes of the victims, and deadeyes have their eyes scratched out in Shadesmar. Is the connection here purely thematic? Or are there actual Realmatic mechanics behind it?

Brandon Sanderson

There are, but they're pretty slight. I would lean more on the idea of the thematic, this more being a Roshar thing, with the eye color, the eyes being scratched out, Shardblades burning out the eyes. There are some Realmatic things behind this, but mostly it's me trying to connect a theme in this magic system.

As you might know (maybe, maybe not), Shardblades originally did cut flesh. I wrote the entire prologue with Szeth and them cutting flesh and... ooh, boy, was that bloody! These are books about war, but man, it was just so gory that I'm like, "I'm gonna back off on this. Let's have it burn out the eyes instead." And I liked it way better that way.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

Edit: 

Another thought that has crossed my mind.  Shardblades don't damage nor destroy other shardblades.  This goes for nightblood and vivennas blade as well. 

Is it the sword shape that prevents them from being damaged and seemingly leeched or something else?  

Is there a breakpoint of investiture where a shardblade cannot drain the item?  If there is it would appear that awakened metal is capable of reaching that point. The bands likely could as well.  

Or do you think enough strikes from shardblades to other shardblades would destroy them too?  We see Nightblood damage an honorblade.  Is it the amount of investiture present?  Because if it is then shardplate, even living, is far far far less invested than an item capable of delivering these investiture severing attacks.  What do you suppose the breakpoint is?  

Nightblood took only 1000 breaths.  You could say he continues to consume more but vivennas blade works similarly to shardblades and doesn't appear to be a constant investiture sucking item.   

 

I think there has to be more to invested metal than what we are seeing and I think sticky investiture is far better vs shardblades than leaky light.  

Spoiler

6 hours ago, therunner said:

Aluminum negates the Invested power cutting itself, Invested item just matches 'strength' against 'strength'.
So instead of just physical strength of material, it is also spiritual or Invested strength that gets matched.

The WoB does not say the straw man would block the Shardblade, only 'block to some extant', i.e. resist

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Questioner

Shardblades cut organic and inorganic matter differently. How would they interact with an animated construct like an Awakened straw man? What about a Lifeless?

Brandon Sanderson

So I walk kind of a fine line here. Something that's animated as a construct, like an Awakened straw man, is likely going to block the Shardblade to some extent, as powerful Investiture would. A Lifeless is probably just gonna act like it was a living being.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

And considering Lifeless would act like living being, I would wager that straw man with single breath would get cut just as easily as anything basically not Invested. If you dump couple thousand Breaths in straw man, then it would resist better.

Additionally, we see Shardblade cut through Invested cloth in RoW, in the duel of Vasher and Kaladin (where we know Vasher used Awakening), and it does not seem that it offers really any noticeable resistance, Quotes (note that Sylblade is dull for most of the fight, and only becomes sharp when mentioned):

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A face and figure formed in nearby sheet, puffing toward Kaladin as if someone were walking through on the other side. He struck immediately, driving his sword through the sheet. It ripped - the point was still sharp enough for that - but didn't strike anyone beyond.
Syl momentarily became sharp - changing before he could ask - as he swiped to cut the sheet in two. It writhed in the wind, severed down the center.
RoW, ch. 15, pg. 218-219

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Zahel still had Kaladin's off hand wrapped in the scarf, which he heaved, spinning Kaladin around. Damnation. Kaladin managed to maneuver his Blade and slice the cloth in half - Syl becoming sharp for a moment - then he leaped backward and tried to regain his footing.
...
he had no reason to believe the man could Surgebind...but the way the cloth had gripped Kaladin's arm had been uncanny.
RoW, ch. 15, pg. 219

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He changed Syl into small dagger. A twist of the wrist cut the scarf, which unraveled the entire trap, leaving Kalading free to spin and slash with his again-dulled knife.
RoW, ch. 15, pg. 220

So at minimum we can say that anything Invested with 1-10 breaths won't offer meaningful resistance to Shardblade, and it would probably take high-hundreds, low thousands before any effect (even minor) would appear.

Heavily Invested metalminds can block Shardblade, any metalmind won't do. As we see from Awekening example, you will need quite a bit of Investiture before anything noticable starts happening.
Wax's and Wayne's metalminds would most likely get cut quite easily. BoM would block some blows, but how many?

Ehm, it takes much more force for a rock to crack a section to any noticable degree. The one time we did see rock crack Shardplate, it was rock size of human head (so several kg's), thrown from a sling by Warform (who are stronger than humans, so the rock is moving up to ~150 km/h), and all it did was puff a little. Compare to Shardblade, where a hit noticeably and considerably cracks a section, which then leaks for a while.

Also, steel would deform and break under the sort of attacks that Shardplate regularly withstands, so while it breaks differently, I would not say it is more brittle then steel.

It is considerably different in how they respond. You won't break a section of plate (or half-shard) with 2-3 strikes from any ordinary melee weapon, even when wielded by someone with supernatural strength. (up to a point of course).

No. As said in the WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3353) the Royal Locks just count as living unlike regular hair. So they will get cut just as easily as human.

Most likely yes (as seen from Kaladin and Vasher duel), unless Invested enough (e.g. hundreds maybe thousands of Breaths).

Not leeched, damaged/destroyed.

As seen in duel in RoW, Awakened cloth offers basically no resistance to Shardblade.

Metalminds have also never been attacked with Shardblade, so we don't know how they will behave.
But based on WoBs, they will get broken after some hits, and I suspect broken in this context means that the Investiture in them will be destroyed or rendered unusable.

That is not what I am suggesting.
I think that the spiritual ideal of the item gets damaged, and as a result the object degrades.
In the context of plate, degrades = cracks, and then starts leaking Stormlight through those cracks.
In the context of half-shard, degrades = the fabrial gets damaged.
In the context of metalmind, degrades = ??, but possibly at minimum the structural integrity would lessen? Or the Investiture in the metalmind gets a bit lessened (since Shardblade cuts on all three Realms (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3560) it must have ability to destroy Investiture).

We don't, but we do have the duel in RoW.

Straw man would 'block to some extant', and the WoB does not specify how many breaths the straw man would have. And the duel shows that couple of Breaths won't offer any meaningful resistance to Shardblade.

As seen from the duel in RoW, not really. Kaladin did not even use Surges in that fight, but Awakened items were getting destroyed by Shardblade easily.

Aluminum has poor properties to make chainmail out of. Pure aluminum (which is the relevant material) is quite soft and weak metal (it has smaller yield strength than plastic, polypropylen), so it would get easily deformed/torn by Shardblade.
Some alloy would be better, but it would have worse defensive properties against the Invested cutting part.

Good question, I don't know. Though Nightblood did chip Honorblade, so it is not inviolable.
I would wager that to damage Shardblade you have to remove considerable amount of Investiture from it/it's spiritweb, and regular clashes are simply not enough.

As you say, Nightblood now holds faar more Investiture then 1000 breaths (plus Shard was involved in its creation), so he is not good example of anything really.
Vivenna's blade would be better example, but we don't know how exactly it was created, and we have never seen it clash with Shardblade, so it  is possible it would get chipped.

Since Honorblade got only chipped when cut Nightblood, both Shardblades and Honorblades must be ridiculously Invested, or have some other means of staying whole, since Nightblood outright vaporizes everything else.

Additionally, those are not merely Invested items, but more akin to artificial spren (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3586), so they would behave differently most likely.

Also, Shardplate is not 'far far far' less Invested then Shardblade, they are comparable. So the reason Plate cracks and Blades don't is probably related to the fact that Plate is formed from multiple spren, and not single spren.

One, Shardplate is not Invested metal, it is Investiture in metallic form.
Two, its resistance is not due to holding Stormlight.
Three, as seen from RoW duel, sticky Investiture (Breaths being the most sticky we have seen so far) does not really offer meaningful resistance, and there is no reason to believe it would offer better protection.


Based on the examples above, clearly when in WoB we see resistance or blocks to some extant it simply means that cutting the object would not be as effortless as usual, and if Invested enough (i.e. on level of ~half-full metalmind) it will start to actually block Shardblade strikes, but it will break after few (1-2) hits.

I do appreciate the quotes from the Vasher Kaladin clash. Do you think that Vasher has found a way to use stormlight to awaken? Do you think he was able to recover any breaths when the cloth was cut?

I think these questions are vital to this discussion as there are only a couple of possible outcomes. 

Either the investiture was lost forever in the case of Syl severing the connection between breaths and cloth or it was simply a blade that cut the cloths and they were not able to function correctly anymore but Vasher didnt lose hundreds of breaths. 

Clearly invested objects rely on the material as well as the amount of investiture combination to block attacks. I am not suggesting a metalmind would be able to be so heavily invested that it would forever exist against a shardblade but I would suggest that the design of what you are using makes a difference. I strongly believe that a cloth with 1000 breaths would still be cut through faster than a metalmind with even a quarter of that total investiture level. 

I also believe that the nature of a plate and blade being made of spren allows them to constantly (especially when living) pull more investiture from the spiritual realm to heal themselves. I imagine Vivennas blade to be somewhere in between an honorblade and a sprenblade. The sentience of type 4 biochromatic entities likely makes them closer to sprenblades than a normal sword in more ways than the obvious "more investiture duh!"  

We know intent means a lot in the cosmere. Awakened objects seem to have their own specific intent (based on what the awakener pictures and commands). Type 4 or higher seem to have a specific ability to have their own interpretation of that intent as well. Perhaps it is this ability to have their own intent that allows a shardblade made via awakening to continue to be fed investiture. Perhaps this is why you cant retrieve the breaths used to create the type 4 objects we have seen. If they breaths used to create those objects are more to kickstart their life and then they pull investiture from the spiritual realm to fuel their intended purpose it would make more sense that something like a metalmind could lose its stored investiture while being struck by a shardblade until it breaks, but an awakened sword would seemingly survive far far longer, perhaps forever. 

That does still leave me questioning if Vasher has been using stormlight to awaken though... I really feel like a duel with Kaladin cutting multiple awakened objects could have dropped a heighening or two depending on where Vasher started breath wise. Perhaps he is not worried about losing any of his breaths due to his experience but he is on a planet where they aren't readily available for him to collect back up. 

Edit: 

I also wanted to leave this WoB that @alder24 provided in another discussion. I am happy with the idea that the shardblade in some way disconnects the investiture from the object but further WoBs would point out that physical mass definately plays a factor in how well this works. Which would suggest to me that something like padded armor surrounded by chainmail specifically designed to absorb some of those physical blows would also make a difference in how many strikes a metalmind could take from a shardblade of any shape and size. 

Spoiler

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

[deleted]

Given Brandon's answer to a block of Cheese stopping a shardblade, how does the last clap work?

Brandon Sanderson

So, I'll admit, I've been considering the cheese question since it was asked.

I'm not sure if it has to be cheese. But any object that is sufficiently thick but also sufficiently pliable that it's going to press down on the blade while it's cutting IS going to create drag on the blade.

The Blade does, by necessity of my understanding of the relevant physics, need to be able to vaporize a tiny bit of matter into Investiture while cutting, in order to create space for the Blade to continue to slide through. This is related to why it doesn't cut things with souls.

At the same time, I'm not convinced that this is relevant to the actual question being asked. I think that I have to relent that, with a sufficiently large block of cheese and a Shardbearer trying to cut lengthwise through it, the drag produced on the flat of the blade is going to tire the Shardbearer. Making cheese legitimately more difficult to cut through than stone or metal. And a big enough block of cheese might stop the slice straight up, because the weight placed on the blade will be pretty heavy.

That said, the top replies to this thread are pretty relevant, and are correctly explaining the mechanics of the situation. There is this little "shield of vaporization" around a Blade while it cuts, so a thinner Blade (like Szeth's Honorblade) might not have this drawback at all. It depends on how far back the shield of vaporization extends, and how thick the blade is.

My current instinct says that wider blades would be stopped by this, and so those of you planning to make ten-foot-thick walls of cheese to stop an invading Shardbearer can continue in your...endeavors.

Remember, kids, keep your Shardblade thin for actual combat (for multiple reasons.) Only make the big showy forms when you're trying to look intimidating. (With a nod to the fact that a thick blade does tend to be better for getting through Shardplate, giving you more mass to hit with. Choose Adolin's Blade for Shardplate Duels. Szeth/Jezrien's Honorblade for cheese.)

General Reddit 2022 (March 19, 2022)

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

[therunner he/him]

33 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I must apologize to @therunner for making a separate post to continue this disussion but I feel like the vs battles get less traction due to the somewhat monotonous and simetimes contentious nature of them and I would like to hear other opinions on this side conversation from one of those. The question was initially about the ability for metalminds to block shardblade strikes.

No need to apologize,it makes sense

33 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I do appreciate the quotes from the Vasher Kaladin clash. Do you think that Vasher has found a way to use stormlight to awaken? Do you think he was able to recover any breaths when the cloth was cut?
I think these questions are vital to this discussion as there are only a couple of possible outcomes. 
Either the investiture was lost forever in the case of Syl severing the connection between breaths and cloth or it was simply a blade that cut the cloths and they were not able to function correctly anymore but Vasher didnt lose hundreds of breaths. 

Good question, dont know

Based on this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12667) Awakening with Stormlight is plausible, though it seems to basically require changing Stormlight into Breathes.
But this newer WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/475/#e15045) states they did not yet crack how to change one Investiture into another, so Zahel cannot do that.
So I think he used Breathes.

On whether he was able to recover some Breaths after cloth was cut, I would expect that yes, though less then he used to Awaken it. We know that recovering Breathes from damaged or destroyed Awakened items can result in loss (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/202/#e5957), and I would expect that Shardblade would among the more destructive ways (considering it damages more comprehensively then mere physical damage).

(Also we have this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/358/#e10748) that answers whether Awakened cloth could resist Shardblade.)

33 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Clearly invested objects rely on the material as well as the amount of investiture combination to block attacks. I am not suggesting a metalmind would be able to be so heavily invested that it would forever exist against a shardblade but I would suggest that the design of what you are using makes a difference. I strongly believe that a cloth with 1000 breaths would still be cut through faster than a metalmind with even a quarter of that total investiture level.

I don't think that is the case, simply because Shardblade only differentiates living vs non-living objects. It cuts cloth basically as easily as it cuts metal.
So more Invested cloth would resist Shardblade better then less Invested metalmind, physical composition of object basically does not matter to Shardblade (aluminum being the sole exception).

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I also believe that the nature of a plate and blade being made of spren allows them to constantly (especially when living) pull more investiture from the spiritual realm to heal themselves.

I don't think that is the case. As we see from Notum, hurt spren require Stormlight to heal, they don't just draw it from anywhere.
Simpler explanation is that the Godmetal alloy Shardblades are made out of is simply incredibly strong metal (e.g. unbreakable, as is fitting for Honor's alloy), and the possibility of breaking Plate is due to it being composed of multiple spren (who have to 'bond' so to speak).
So when Shardblades clash, neither actually damages the other, or only in very minor ways (effectively 'scratches').

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I imagine Vivennas blade to be somewhere in between an honorblade and a sprenblade. The sentience of type 4 biochromatic entities likely makes them closer to sprenblades than a normal sword in more ways than the obvious "more investiture duh!"  

Investiture wise or Cognition wise?
Because Investiture wise I would put it like this: Nightblood >>>>>>>>>Honorblades>=Shardblades>Vivennas Blade.
Cognitive wise, I think Vivennas blade is a bit more concious then Honorblades, but less then Shardblades and Nightblood (though maybe it is just shy )

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We know intent means a lot in the cosmere. Awakened objects seem to have their own specific intent (based on what the awakener pictures and commands). Type 4 or higher seem to have a specific ability to have their own interpretation of that intent as well. Perhaps it is this ability to have their own intent that allows a shardblade made via awakening to continue to be fed investiture. . 

Nightblood is special case, and Vivennas blade does not seem to consume Investiture.
We know too little about Type 4 entities to make sweeping statements about them. The best example we have is also an outlier.

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Perhaps this is why you cant retrieve the breaths used to create the type 4 objects we have seen. If they breaths used to create those objects are more to kickstart their life and then they pull investiture from the spiritual realm to fuel their intended purpose it would make more sense that something like a metalmind could lose its stored investiture while being struck by a shardblade until it breaks, but an awakened sword would seemingly survive far far longer, perhaps forever

I don't think you pull any Investiture from spiritual realm in such way. Yes, both of those swords have spitiweb in SR, but that does not mean they draw upon Investiture, just that they are alive.

But I do agree that Type 4 entities being alive is the reason why Breathes cannot be retrieved, since they are now keyed to Identity of the created Type 4 entity.
Same reason why Mistborn could not burn Nightblood (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/85/#e2901), and possibly also Shardblades.

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That does still leave me questioning if Vasher has been using stormlight to awaken though... I really feel like a duel with Kaladin cutting multiple awakened objects could have dropped a heighening or two depending on where Vasher started breath wise. Perhaps he is not worried about losing any of his breaths due to his experience but he is on a planet where they aren't readily available for him to collect back up. 

As stated above, he most likely could not Awaken with Stormlight.
And I think Vasher does not care much, since he has guaranteed 5th Heightening from Divine breath, and is feeding on Stormlight to survive.
If he used ~100 Breaths in that fight, and lost even half, that is relatively ok amount for him.

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I also wanted to leave this WoB that @alder24 provided in another discussion. I am happy with the idea that the shardblade in some way disconnects the investiture from the object but further WoBs would point out that physical mass definately plays a factor in how well this works. Which would suggest to me that something like padded armor surrounded by chainmail specifically designed to absorb some of those physical blows would also make a difference in how many strikes a metalmind could take from a shardblade of any shape and size. 

Physical mass lets you hit with more force, so that part tracks.
But I don't think it would make any appreciable difference in how many strikes can metalmind take, the difference is too small, because the chainmail is still the item that takes brunt of the damage.


 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

No need to apologize,it makes sense

Good question, dont know

Based on this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/379/#e12667) Awakening with Stormlight is plausible, though it seems to basically require changing Stormlight into Breathes.
But this newer WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/475/#e15045) states they did not yet crack how to change one Investiture into another, so Zahel cannot do that.
So I think he used Breathes.

On whether he was able to recover some Breaths after cloth was cut, I would expect that yes, though less then he used to Awaken it. We know that recovering Breathes from damaged or destroyed Awakened items can result in loss (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/202/#e5957), and I would expect that Shardblade would among the more destructive ways (considering it damages more comprehensively then mere physical damage).

(Also we have this WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/358/#e10748) that answers whether Awakened cloth could resist Shardblade.)

I don't think that is the case, simply because Shardblade only differentiates living vs non-living objects. It cuts cloth basically as easily as it cuts metal.
So more Invested cloth would resist Shardblade better then less Invested metalmind, physical composition of object basically does not matter to Shardblade (aluminum being the sole exception).

I don't think that is the case. As we see from Notum, hurt spren require Stormlight to heal, they don't just draw it from anywhere.
Simpler explanation is that the Godmetal alloy Shardblades are made out of is simply incredibly strong metal (e.g. unbreakable, as is fitting for Honor's alloy), and the possibility of breaking Plate is due to it being composed of multiple spren (who have to 'bond' so to speak).
So when Shardblades clash, neither actually damages the other, or only in very minor ways (effectively 'scratches').

Investiture wise or Cognition wise?
Because Investiture wise I would put it like this: Nightblood >>>>>>>>>Honorblades>=Shardblades>Vivennas Blade.
Cognitive wise, I think Vivennas blade is a bit more concious then Honorblades, but less then Shardblades and Nightblood (though maybe it is just shy )

Nightblood is special case, and Vivennas blade does not seem to consume Investiture.
We know too little about Type 4 entities to make sweeping statements about them. The best example we have is also an outlier.

I don't think you pull any Investiture from spiritual realm in such way. Yes, both of those swords have spitiweb in SR, but that does not mean they draw upon Investiture, just that they are alive.

But I do agree that Type 4 entities being alive is the reason why Breathes cannot be retrieved, since they are now keyed to Identity of the created Type 4 entity.
Same reason why Mistborn could not burn Nightblood (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/85/#e2901), and possibly also Shardblades.

As stated above, he most likely could not Awaken with Stormlight.
And I think Vasher does not care much, since he has guaranteed 5th Heightening from Divine breath, and is feeding on Stormlight to survive.
If he used ~100 Breaths in that fight, and lost even half, that is relatively ok amount for him.

Physical mass lets you hit with more force, so that part tracks.
But I don't think it would make any appreciable difference in how many strikes can metalmind take, the difference is too small, because the chainmail is still the item that takes brunt of the damage.


 

I can get on board with most of this.  

New question to pose though.  

If instead of metalmind chain mail we were to have an awakened chain mail that is now a type 4 entity do you think that you would be losing those breaths piece by piece? Would it hold up as well as say a piece of living plate? I still have a small insistance that there is a material difference between shardplate and invested steel. Shardplate cracks and shatters and leaks light... regardless of what is damaging it. It appears to be brittle where a tempered steel piece of chainmail would not be. 

I am curious if intent given to a now sapient being saying to "use this investiture to protect me from weapons" would allow it to resist far beyond plate. 

I am not entirely convinced that the investiture plays as big of a role as the material still. Wax can shoot through plate according to some wobs... in about the same amount of shots that a shardblade would take. Shardhammers can break through plate. A cloth with a hundred breaths or so gets cut regardless of the weapon. Chainmail would not be penetrated by a shardhammer but they can break through plate. The material being used has to play a role of some kind in it. How much of a difference it makes I dont know. What we have in the books is that if a blade can cut it or break it then a shardblade can do it faster. But I feel like you continue to look past the fact that shardplate and regular plate armor or chain mail made of steel work completely differently from the start. Regardless of investiture levels. Cloth, straw, steel, and shardplate are all different materials and they all act differently. 

I am trying to remember if blades pass through plate once it is locked up and drained? There is no noticeable difference in the way plate spills out stormlight when being hit by a shard or non shard weapon either is there?  

The lesser spren likely are less sentient than an awakened set of armor would be as well. 

Again this leads me to trying to understand the difference between a shardblade and an awakened steel sword. 

If you had enough atium to forge a sword would it be awakenable? You can store youth into it so it obviously isnt so full on its own that investiture cant be added on. Would that blade be a better option than simple steel awakened? 

[Argenti he/him]

Great, Now I'm imagining an awakened suit of armor that can change rigidity depending on what tries to break it. 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

58 minutes ago, Argenti said:

Great, Now I'm imagining an awakened suit of armor that can change rigidity depending on what tries to break it. 

Haha I have been there many a times.  While wearing the armor it sings "can't touch this" over and over.  

[therunner he/him]

3 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If instead of metalmind chain mail we were to have an awakened chain mail that is now a type 4 entity do you think that you would be losing those breaths piece by piece? Would it hold up as well as say a piece of living plate?

I honestly don't know. It depends on what exactly happens when Shardblade is blocked by Invested item.
I would wager it either losses some Breathes per hit, or it loses some 'idealness', which eventually causes it to catastrophically fail (e.g. shatter) and it is during that Breathes get destroyed.

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I still have a small insistance that there is a material difference between shardplate and invested steel. Shardplate cracks and shatters and leaks light... regardless of what is damaging it. It appears to be brittle where a tempered steel piece of chainmail would not be. 

In some sense yes, it is more brittle then weak. But I would say it is still stronger material than tempered steel.

Again, Shardplate can take a hit from ~5 kg of rock flung at ~100 km/h without virtually any damage. Do that to steel chainmail and it gets torn through.
Shardplate is basically supernatural cast iron, but basically all its properties are above those of regular metals. Invested steel will still be only steel (unless some Command helps enhance its properties).

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I am curious if intent given to a now sapient being saying to "use this investiture to protect me from weapons" would allow it to resist far beyond plate. 

Doubtful.
It might rival it in some aspects (since you can replicate a lot of Invested arts using a different one), but it would not surpass not, not by great margin.
Per Brandon, Shardplate is 'powered armor' of Cosmere and

Spoiler

it will continue to be used throughout the Space Age/Era 4.

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I am not entirely convinced that the investiture plays as big of a role as the material still. Wax can shoot through plate according to some wobs... in about the same amount of shots that a shardblade would take.

There is one WoB saying plate would resist bullets well (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3561), and another saying that Wax with specific weapon, in the right moment, with the right bullet might break section with 2-3 bullets. And Wax as Crasher can put a lot of weight behind his Pushes (and uses it to enhance power of his shots to make them penetrate barriers they would not otherwise), so it is entirely possible that Wax can do it...if he uses up years worth of weight in a single Push. Possible in principle, but exactly reliable.

Roseite Aether can resist bullets easily, and is seemingly both more brittle and less strong then Shardplate metal.

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Shardhammers can break through plate. A cloth with a hundred breaths or so gets cut regardless of the weapon. Chainmail would not be penetrated by a shardhammer but they can break through plate.

Shardhammers can break through plate after dozens of hits (or more), and is wielded by someone in Shardplate (so someone who is ~15x as strong as human). And they are so heavy that 2-3 people have to carry them. Shardhammer would absolutely destroy any chainmail, or the person wearing it, since flexibility of it would work against the defensive goal here.

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The material being used has to play a role of some kind in it. How much of a difference it makes I dont know. What we have in the books is that if a blade can cut it or break it then a shardblade can do it faster.

The material plays a role only when it comes to the regular cutting/defense potential. But against Shardblade that does not matter, only the Investiture content matters.

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But I feel like you continue to look past the fact that shardplate and regular plate armor or chain mail made of steel work completely differently from the start. Regardless of investiture levels. Cloth, straw, steel, and shardplate are all different materials and they all act differently. 

I don't look past it, Shardplate is basically impervious to non-Shardblade attacks.
Look at what Sadeas took, bunch of warform parshendi wailing on him with hammers for minutes and they did not break a section. If he had plate or chain mail, he would be dead within seconds.
Shardplate is vastly stronger material than regular materials.

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I am trying to remember if blades pass through plate once it is locked up and drained? There is no noticeable difference in the way plate spills out stormlight when being hit by a shard or non shard weapon either is there?  

Plate shields from Blade regardless of having Stormlight in gems. Stormlight is only necessary to heal Plate (and allow movement in deadplate).
No difference in how light spills out, only it takes a lot more to damage Plate when using anything but Shardblade.

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The lesser spren likely are less sentient than an awakened set of armor would be as well. 

Most likely, depends on Command, number of Breathes, and maybe other conditions.

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If you had enough atium to forge a sword would it be awakenable? You can store youth into it so it obviously isnt so full on its own that investiture cant be added on. Would that blade be a better option than simple steel awakened? 

Not sure honestly.
One, Awakening Atium blade would be probably difficult (Investiture resists Investiture).
Two, Atium is soft and pliable, so it would not make good sword, but perhaps that can be improved through awakening.


I think there is another question here: What properties of Shardplate/blade are result of being Investiture/heavily Invested and what are 'natural' properties of the Godmetal alloys that make them up?

Edited April 13, 2023 by therunner

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

2 hours ago, therunner said:

I honestly don't know. It depends on what exactly happens when Shardblade is blocked by Invested item.
I would wager it either losses some Breathes per hit, or it loses some 'idealness', which eventually causes it to catastrophically fail (e.g. shatter) and it is during that Breathes get destroyed.

In some sense yes, it is more brittle then weak. But I would say it is still stronger material than tempered steel.

Again, Shardplate can take a hit from ~5 kg of rock flung at ~100 km/h without virtually any damage. Do that to steel chainmail and it gets torn through.
Shardplate is basically supernatural cast iron, but basically all its properties are above those of regular metals. Invested steel will still be only steel (unless some Command helps enhance its properties).

Doubtful.
It might rival it in some aspects (since you can replicate a lot of Invested arts using a different one), but it would not surpass not, not by great margin.
Per Brandon, Shardplate is 'powered armor' of Cosmere and

  Reveal hidden contents

it will continue to be used throughout the Space Age/Era 4.

There is one WoB saying plate would resist bullets well (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/100/#e3561), and another saying that Wax with specific weapon, in the right moment, with the right bullet might break section with 2-3 bullets. And Wax as Crasher can put a lot of weight behind his Pushes (and uses it to enhance power of his shots to make them penetrate barriers they would not otherwise), so it is entirely possible that Wax can do it...if he uses up years worth of weight in a single Push. Possible in principle, but exactly reliable.

Roseite Aether can resist bullets easily, and is seemingly both more brittle and less strong then Shardplate metal.

Shardhammers can break through plate after dozens of hits (or more), and is wielded by someone in Shardplate (so someone who is ~15x as strong as human). And they are so heavy that 2-3 people have to carry them. Shardhammer would absolutely destroy any chainmail, or the person wearing it, since flexibility of it would work against the defensive goal here.

The material plays a role only when it comes to the regular cutting/defense potential. But against Shardblade that does not matter, only the Investiture content matters.

I don't look past it, Shardplate is basically impervious to non-Shardblade attacks.
Look at what Sadeas took, bunch of warform parshendi wailing on him with hammers for minutes and they did not break a section. If he had plate or chain mail, he would be dead within seconds.
Shardplate is vastly stronger material than regular materials.

Plate shields from Blade regardless of having Stormlight in gems. Stormlight is only necessary to heal Plate (and allow movement in deadplate).
No difference in how light spills out, only it takes a lot more to damage Plate when using anything but Shardblade.

Most likely, depends on Command, number of Breathes, and maybe other conditions.

Not sure honestly.
One, Awakening Atium blade would be probably difficult (Investiture resists Investiture).
Two, Atium is soft and pliable, so it would not make good sword, but perhaps that can be improved through awakening.


I think there is another question here: What properties of Shardplate/blade are result of being Investiture/heavily Invested and what are 'natural' properties of the Godmetal alloys that make them up?

The purpose for chainmail and padded armor is to absorb a bunch of the impact (like an egg drop) while also protecting from the cutting edge. Specifically in the case of someone with supernatural healing who simply needs to protect their spine from being severed. Miles would not care about a rock being hurled at him nearly as much as he would be worried about a shard blade to the spine (if that is even a worry to him). A 5kg rock is going to have a fair amount of surface area and 100km/hr is still less than 100fps, tons of energy but I dont see it punching through chainmail and a person wearing padding underneath. 

Same argument for the shardhammer. I am not worried about the blunt force when the character is able to heal and is simply making an armor piece to stop the one shot potential of a shardblade. 

That is the danger of a shardblade. I am not really trying to argue for anything stronger than plate as much as I am trying to understand the material that is plate. A rock might take a few hits with the hammer to break but chainmail over padding on a body that can heal isnt going to break from any amount of hammer strikes. It doesnt have to stop the blunt trauma for a gold compounder to get a ton of milage out of it. It just has to stop enough spine shots to wear down the weilder of the shardblade. 

Edit: 

Just thought about this as well. Shardplate is probably the least consistent thing we have seen in the cosmere. Warform parshendi hammering on plate for minutes with weapons designed for it... But Kaladin cracks plate with a single dropkick. I wont pretend to know how much stormlight it would take to lash that many times but this is clearly a huge inconsistency. TWoK made shardplate wicked OP and it has only been tamed down since then both in strength and in durability. 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

[therunner he/him]

11 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

The purpose for chainmail and padded armor is to absorb a bunch of the impact (like an egg drop) while also protecting from the cutting edge. Specifically in the case of someone with supernatural healing who simply needs to protect their spine from being severed. Miles would not care about a rock being hurled at him nearly as much as he would be worried about a shard blade to the spine (if that is even a worry to him). A 5kg rock is going to have a fair amount of surface area and 100km/hr is still less than 100fps, tons of energy but I dont see it punching through chainmail and a person wearing padding underneath.

At that point the rock is basically a cannonball, it could feasibly tear through chainmail, unless that chainmail is magically enhanced with greater structural Integrity.
Remember that chainmail is good against slashing , not against blunt force. It is made of small pieces of steel, that would give way more easily under such force.
Miles would still care, because one hit with Shardhammer (wielded by someone in Shardplate) would still crush his internal organs and break bones/spine with a single hit, because chainmail is flexible. Even Miles would take 1-2 seconds to heal from that, and he was F-Gold savant.

11 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Same argument for the shardhammer. I am not worried about the blunt force when the character is able to heal and is simply making an armor piece to stop the one shot potential of a shardblade.

Point is not blunt force trauma, point is that shardhammer would tear up the chainmail, and make in ineffective.
Yes, it would stop the one-shot potential of Shardblade, that much I agree with.

11 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

That is the danger of a shardblade. I am not really trying to argue for anything stronger than plate as much as I am trying to understand the material that is plate. A rock might take a few hits with the hammer to break but chainmail over padding on a body that can heal isnt going to break from any amount of hammer strikes. It doesnt have to stop the blunt trauma for a gold compounder to get a ton of milage out of it. It just has to stop enough spine shots to wear down the weilder of the shardblade.

From regular hammer strikes chainmail won't break most likely, but then again, neither will Shardplate.
From hammer strikes that are ~6-10x the size of regular warhammers, and wielded by someone with superstrenght? Chainmail will break. And even if not, a single hit would still completely crush organs and break bones of the wearer, because of the flexibility.

11 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Just thought about this as well. Shardplate is probably the least consistent thing we have seen in the cosmere. Warform parshendi hammering on plate for minutes with weapons designed for it... But Kaladin cracks plate with a single dropkick. I wont pretend to know how much stormlight it would take to lash that many times but this is clearly a huge inconsistency. TWoK made shardplate wicked OP and it has only been tamed down since then both in strength and in durability.

Kaladin lashed himself as many times as he could, which could be just 4x which would be inconsistent, but it could also be 50x which would be consistent. Basically, since we don't know exactly how many times he lashed himself, it is as consistent as Brandon wants.
I don't think Plate has been made weaker, it was just out of focus for a moment, as we were exploring Radiants before 4th Oath. Now that Kaladin has Plate, I expect we will see more of it again.
We still basically never see anyone in Plate get killed without Shardbladed opponent.


Sidenote: I wonder how feasible is to use chainmail as metalmind, since it is made up of small links and is not a large continuous chunk of metal. In theory the metal could have been Invested first, and then forged into chainmail, but would it work as small metalminds (if it retained appropriate ratio of metals).
For Awakening this won't be an issue, as it ordinarily takes over more complicated objects.

Sidenote 2: Why did the Five Scholars not create Awakened armor? When they visited Roshar, Plate was already in existence, so they would have known about it. So why create only the weapon, and not the defensive (and arguably more useful) tool?

Edit: WoB confirms Zahel does not know how to Awaken with Stormlight, so the sheets were Awakened using Breaths
 

Spoiler

ZenBossanova (paraphrased)

Can Vasher use Stormlight to Awaken things?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

No, all it does is keep him alive. But he has tried and has not figured out how to Awaken things.

Firefight Phoenix signing (Jan. 21, 2015)

 

Edited April 14, 2023 by therunner

[alder24]

14 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

The purpose for chainmail and padded armor is to absorb a bunch of the impact (like an egg drop) while also protecting from the cutting edge. Specifically in the case of someone with supernatural healing who simply needs to protect their spine from being severed. Miles would not care about a rock being hurled at him nearly as much as he would be worried about a shard blade to the spine (if that is even a worry to him). A 5kg rock is going to have a fair amount of surface area and 100km/hr is still less than 100fps, tons of energy but I dont see it punching through chainmail and a person wearing padding underneath. 

Same argument for the shardhammer. I am not worried about the blunt force when the character is able to heal and is simply making an armor piece to stop the one shot potential of a shardblade. 

Chainmail is for stopping cutting and slashing damage, not piercing and smashing one. A hammer blow into a chainmail would smash its rings to pieces and break your bones. Surprisingly, it's plate armor that's better at dealing with hammer blows than a chainmail. 5 kg rock going 100 km/h would be more energetic than a war hammer strike, even without a sharp edge, you would have a severe internal damage and broken bones. It's not a cannonball, as those go 10x faster, but it's still a "weak" cannonball.

Just look what war hammer strike to a riveted chainmail does: https://youtu.be/gnK_aqNIpcA?t=329 - keep in mind, a properly worn chainmail would be under tension, so the damage done to it would be even greater than in this test, as lots of energy is lost to the movement of the chain bouncing up and down.

 

5 hours ago, therunner said:

We still basically never see anyone in Plate get killed without Shardbladed opponent.

Helaran

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Sidenote: I wonder how feasible is to use chainmail as metalmind, since it is made up of small links and is not a large continuous chunk of metal.

If you want to have access to those metalminds then it's not a good idea at all, as all of them are not touching your body. You would have to touch them with your hand. If you want to have only a form of invested protection, then it's quite a good idea. But then it depends on the metal used - iron and steel are strong metals, brass, tin, pewter, copper, and more, most of the base 16 metals tbf, are bad choices as these metals don't provide such good protection and can deform and break more easily. That's why the chainmail metalmind would have to be made out of one metal entirely, steel would be the best, to avoid having a weak spots in your armor, but the problem is - it's hard to store a lot of speed in a normal steelmind, not to mention a piece of armor weighing 10-20 kg, that's a lot of attribute needed to fill it up to be a Shardblade resistant. Even if you made it out of all 16 metals, nothing except for compounding would fill it up fully.

5 hours ago, therunner said:

Sidenote 2: Why did the Five Scholars not create Awakened armor? When they visited Roshar, Plate was already in existence, so they would have known about it. So why create only the weapon, and not the defensive (and arguably more useful) tool?

They did, Vasher's Awakened shirt, trousers and cloak works somehow similar to a Shardplate - giving him extra strength and protection. Not on the same level as a Shardplate, but still on a significant level on Nalthis. Not to mention they didn't know Shardplates are from spren, while they could know Shardblades are from them, as they could see deadeyes in CR. But after witnessing what Nightblood can do, I think Vasher would never want to create a plate like this.

Edited April 14, 2023 by alder24

[Heilven he/him]

I think a big issue here is the lack of examples that we have of this phenomenon. We have Radiant Shardblades, Honorblades, Nightblood, and Vivenna's Blade. But we know very little about Vivenna's Blade, so our only non-honor shardblade is Nightblood. And we know Nightblood is an outlier.

On 4/13/2023 at 9:18 AM, therunner said:

Vivennas blade does not seem to consume Investiture.

I actually disagree with this, I think that is how it cuts at all. We are shown in Oathbringer that Vivenna's Blade kills differently from a shardblade. I'll try to find the passage:

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As he watched, she stabbed an enemy soldier who tried to push through. Remarkably, his eyes didn’t burn, though his skin did go a strange ashen grey as he died.

I'd reckon this is in some way consuming the investiture of the person, causing them to die. I still think it cuts on a spiritual and cognitive level rather than physical, but I think that works out. So in some way, I think Vivenna's blade is more like a controlled Nightblood. It doesn't eat investiture in the quantities that Nightblood demands, but still consumes investiture.

Regardless, It's difficult to decide what it is about a shardblade that gives it its properties. I think that Vivenna's Blade and Nightblood are actually more dangerous than a Radiant Blade, because they are going to kill you straight up. A shardblade will simply sever your connection to the physical realm. This would track as for why the Fused were afraid of Vivenna's blade, as it would probably kill them permanently.

The more interesting question is on the properties of radiant blades and honorblades. I would expect them to have different properties, since Honorblades are made of Tanavastium and invested with pure stormlight, whereas radiant blades are made of Avastium (Alloy of honor and cultivation's god metals, I like this name) in different ratios and are invested by some combination of stormlight and lifelight (I imagine this has to be true, as spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation, not just one or the other). So I would expect there to be some difference in properties not only between honorblades and radiant blades, but between the different types of radiant blades. 

All of this speculation is hard tho, as we have no idea what uninvested Tanavastium (Tanavastium is too long. I think we should call it Tanavium. I think that rolls of the tongue well) is like on its own. While I don't disagree with the idea of it being unbreakable, that's a bit redundant. We know that heavily invested objects are stronger and harder to cut, so it follows that a shardblade has unbreakable properties due to it's extreme amounts of investiture. I think the properties of uninvested Tanavium have to be important to some degree, so I hope we find out what those are at some point.

I think shardblades definitely destroy the investiture in a material to some degree, or maybe cause it to leak. I should be more specific. I think that any invested object is closer to the spiritual realm, and thus will attempt to hold to its spiritual ideal to some degree. So when a shardblade attempts to cut the connection in an object, the extra investiture fills in the cuts, holding the whole thing together. Eventually the extra investiture is all used up, and the object is cut through just like normal. Perhaps the reason this doesn't happen to radiant blades has to do with the relative investitures between them. Since they are the same, both resist cuts from the other radiant blade perfectly. Compare this to shardplate, which is far less invested. When struck by any weapon, it will begin to lose the investiture holding it together. At some point, I imagine the spren simply chooses to stop taking physical form, deciding it isn't worth the possible damage.

"But Heilven!" You may be thinking. "Invested metalminds can be cut!". And that's certainly true. But I think that has to do with your intent. I actually think something like a shardknife would be completely incapable of cutting a metalmind without destroying all of the investiture first. In some way, I think the metalmind is still one spiritual object when cut. A shardblade has to cut in the cognitive and spiritual realms, so the metalmind would resist this. But if you were just attempting to cut it in half, I think that the metalmind wouldn't object. It doesn't really care about being in one piece. Compare this to shardplate, where the spren definitely care about being in one piece, and won't want you to cut them into pieces.

That last bit I'm not too confident about. It could be due to the physical properties of tanavium/avastium making the bonds extremely strong, such that it just won't break. I'm definitely willing to believe that, but I wouldn't really expect that out of cultivation's metal. I would figure that it would want to change, not remain the exact same all the time.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

@therunner @alder24 

I actually agree that chainmail is not the ideal armor in everycase.  My thought process is that someone like a fullborn or someone else with mad healing would do well with a piece of invested chainmail for the singular purpose of negating the 1 shot kill shardblade to the spine. I can disagree that blunt and piercing damage are the more effective ways of dealing with mail... Blunt and piercing damage exists to counter a world of armor wearers. I think there are plenty of better choice armor styles for someone who just wants to mitigate damage.

In the case of someone who is specifically trying to prevent the 1 shot potential of a shardblade I really like chainmail as it is the option that perhaps keeps you most mobile and flexible during the contest. Chainmail also has a benefit of needing less investiture to fill up potentially as it is a smaller mass (I could totally be wrong here and would accept that). I also think that a brigandine would make a great set of armor to invest to resist the shardblade. However, the brigandine would be more metal to fill and not have as easy of a time protecting the neck or head where a single piece of chainmail may be able to encompass the entire spine.

I am not thinking so much about access to the stored attribute as the combatant should be able to end the fight before needing to draw on those attributes. This is investiture from a compounder or awakener that is accepting of the fact that this piece of armor is only in existence to stop them from getting their eyes burnt out. You don't need to worry about gathering the investiture for use later.  

I totally accept that it would take quite some time to make this armor.  20+ lbs of steel would be well beyond bands levels of storage but a compounder like a fullborn could well have the time to do it. (That isn't to say they would). 

A body is pretty squishy and I don't know that I agree with the video @alder24 posted. I agree it will be pulled tighter but a stiff wooden back drop vs a squishy body as a back drop is quite a difference.  A few pieces broken from a spike on a hammer aren't going to weaken the point of the armor which is to stop the 1 shot. Miles didnt skip a beat while instantly healing his face brain and skull after being shot in the head and I think the same argument applies to hammer blows. The mail would certainly stop a penetrating thrust before spine severing depth and so long as you are able to heal through the damage done while protecting your spine from the 7 foot shardblade the armor is doing its job. 

@therunner  

I appreciate the WoB on Vasher. You are right about a few breaths not being a worry for him. As for why they never tried metal armor awakening I imagine it is likely because the cost is so high. @alder24 has a good point about awakened armor being a thing and it just not being in the form of metal armor. Strengthened limbs and protection could well have been a cheaper attempt at copying a set of shardplate. 

I imagine after seeing that type 4 entities can't have their breaths retrieved, the scholars became very cautious in how quickly they jumped to dumping investiture into them. Furthermore, if it turns out that an awakened suit of armor would just lose breaths everytime it gets hit by a shardblade it would be really hard to justify if you could instead have a cloak with 100 strips of arm catching tassels to stop the blade before it hits you. Would I want to trust a cloak that can catch arrows to last clap a shardblade or arm wrestle a shardbearer who is trying to stab me? Personally, if I had the 9th heightening a blade and brigandine would be at the top of my list for things to awaken... perhaps a neck / head covering chain cowl as well if I had the breaths to spare. Then you awaken your clothing underneath to give you all of the strength enhancements and durability enhancements. That would be as close to a shardbearer as you can get through awakening but then you also have 3 separate type 4 entities talking to you all the time (pray you can get a quiet one like Vivenna). 

@Heilven

I like the idea that there is a transference of investiture when smashing invested weapons. The idea that spren may choose to dip out during the fight after a specific draining threshold or something makes sense too. I dont think that an awakened set of armor would have that same issue and it is possible that the proper command could turn a suit of armor into an investiture leech like the blades. 

There is some valid basis to the idea of Vivenna's blade siphoning investiture as well and perhaps destroying on a deeper level than your Rosharan shardblade as well. Maybe Hoid would be similarly scared of it if he had more knowledge of its workings. It definitely works on a different principle though. 

Large stretch here... I personally believe that an awakener could potentially ruin enemy sources of fuel via color draining... the god kings awakening was turning everything to white. I think based on these wobs he could potentially ruin metals for all 3 metalic arts and create some huge issues for the abilities for gems to hold onto light for the long term. I also would venture to say that the god king could walk through Uritheru and absolutely wreck their fabrials and potentially damage the tower all together...

Bottom line. Color is important in the cosmere and if a sword is draining all of the color of its victums then it is damaging them at a spiritual level unlike anything else we have seen... not just severing the connection between the 3 realms.  

Prepare for a load of WoBs all to do with color in the cosmere. 

Spoiler

Questioner

What would happen if somebody used the color from a Stormlight-infused gem to create a BioChromatic entity?

Brandon Sanderson

So I just had this question actually and what we came up with was that would leave behind something that is like a cloudy quartz and is going to make it work not as well for holding Stormlight. That's our answer right now, I'm going to talk to my scientists and see what they think because draining the color from something doesn't just leave it white, or clear, it kind of ruins it, it's gray-ish, it's dun. It clouds. So I think it would ruin things for Stormlight.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

Spoiler

tallakahath

So, on Nalthis, in the Warbreaker universe, when the color's pulled out of something, is that a physical or chemical change or is that a perceptual change?

Brandon Sanderson

It is actually a physical change, but the spirit of the thing is changing, and it's filtering through to the Physical Realm.

tallakahath

So, if I do that on a carrot, I can break beta carotin? If I do that on a piece of metal, I can reduce it and charge my battery that way?

Brandon Sanderson

Potentially, yeah! Yeah, that would work, you're changing it's Spiritual nature.

DragonCon 2019 (Aug. 29, 2019)

Spoiler

Questioner

With the gemstones, we know that the hue seems to matter more than the rarity. Is that somehow tying in to the colors for Warbreaker, and how that stuff works?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, that is tying in. Color will be a recurring theme, much as metal will be a recurring theme, as you see different magic systems work. In this case, the color has an affect on the spren and getting a spren trapped in it.

Questioner

So just the color itself?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah the color is the important part. When I was researching Stormlight, I determined that color had to be the point. Because a lot of the gemstones I'm using are molecularly identical.

Questioner

So that was the best way to differentiate?

Brandon Sanderson

So this was the best way to differentiate. But I had already had this as part of the cosmere, that color and the way people perceive color and things like, that were part of it. But getting ten different gemstones that were molecularly different proved to be very difficult and not worth it. If you look, so many of them are just basically the same gemstone with a few impurities. Their crystalline structure is the same.

Idaho Falls signing (July 21, 2018)

Spoiler

lupicorn

Hi Brandon,

I was wondering about how color-based magic like Soulcasters would work before the terms that define the colors existed. I know the Spiritual Realm is supposed to be associated with color and sound (maybe due to the mathematical basis of wavelengths?), but it doesn't seem like the exact wavelengths of the gemstones used in Soulcasters matter as much as whether they're understood as being specific colors. Does the existence of a color category precede the existence of a distinct magical effect or would the effect exist regardless? Like, before the language of the first inhabitants of the Rosharan system had words to differentiate between green and yellow would heliodors and emeralds have produced the same effect? Or smokestone and amethyst before the existence of the blue category?

I have a feeling the answer is going to be similar to why the Bands of Mourning couldn't be used before they were known to be the Bands of Mourning but I thought I'd ask.

Brandon Sanderson

So, the color theory things in a lot of the cosmere are deeply integrated with the ideas of perception. I've mentioned before that some gemstones, for example, are nearly identical chemically, but are different colors--and so work differently in the magic. This is about perceptions.

Linguistics certainly has a hand in shaping our perceptions of things. And so yes, the direction you're theorizing here has merit, but I'm going to have to RAFO details for now.

General Reddit 2020 (Sept. 26, 2020)

Spoiler

zas678

If an Awakener went to Roshar and bled color from a gem, would this gem still hold Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

If an Awakener bled-- No it would-- Oh wait yes it would because a colorless gem could still hold Stormlight. It just would not have--

zas678

Would not have the properties of the original color.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, the color is integral to what's going on because molecularly some of these gems are the same except for the different coloring. The coloring is kind of what--

zas678

What defines what magic.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. It has to with fabrials and some of the effects, and that relates directly to the spren and what spren-- anyway.

Holiday signing (Dec. 12, 2015)

Spoiler

Shadow Guardian

If an Awakener were to go to Roshar and were to bleed the color from a gem would that gem still be able to store Stormlight?

Brandon Sanderson

Bleed the color from a gem… Um ye-ye-ye-yeah. This would interfere with its function on Roshar. It would probably still be able to hold Stormlight…

Shadow Guardian

Might not be able to be used for Soulcasting?

Brandon Sanderson

Yea-- It's going to… You know what no it would just change it. It would just bleed the color from it and turn it into a dusty quartz or something like that. That's probably what it would end up with, a dusty quartz. Because the molecular structure doesn't matter as much as the color for Roshar. So yeah you would probably still be able to hold Stormlight because a diamond can but I don't know, quartz might cut it. You'd probably end up with something that's not going to work so well.

Questioner 2

What about a fabrial that needs a specific--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah a specific-- A ruby wouldn't work any more, and it would let go whatever is captured inside.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

Spoiler

ArsenoPyrite

I have a technical question here re: gemstones in The Stormlight Archive. How are the lines drawn between different types of gem? Emerald and Heliodor are both varieties of the mineral beryl. Emerald can get its color from trace amounts of chromium, vanadium and/or iron. Heliodor gets its color from iron combined with microscopic crystal defects. So, is the line between these two defined by color? If so, would a heliodor lose its usefulness if it were heated (which would turn it colorless or pale blue). Is it defined by trace elements--in which case, how do you deal with emeralds, or with aquamarine (the blue variety of beryl, which can also contain chromium or vanadium in small quantities and is mostly colored by iron). Sorry for getting so technical, but this gem nerd needs to know!

Brandon Sanderson

I actually spent a long time working on this while building the world. You'd probably be amused by how long I spent on it. Chemically, many of them are actually very similar, as you pointed out. I tried doing the book originally with them all being different, not using any that were basically the same crystal with different colors, but it didn't work out. There weren't enough, and so I had to stretch to make it all work.

So, I went back to the original, and decided that color was enough to differentiate them. Just as steel and iron are very similar in the mistborn world, Emerald and Heliodor can be very similar--but produce different effects. The idea here is that the physical items (like the metals or the crystals) provide a key by which magical interaction occurs.

So, in a long winded answer, a gemstone with an impure color would be considered like a bad alloy in the Mistborn magic--it either wouldn't work at all, or would work very poorly. The chemical and color signature needs to be of a specific variety to provide the proper key to accessing the power of transformation.

/r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 15, 2013)

Spoiler

Sciencetor2

The gems on Roshar, are they the same as the gems you and me know, or are they a byproduct of Investiture?

Brandon Sanderson

For the most part they are the same as the gems we know, which will ask the question, "Since most of them are chemically identical, other than color, what differentiates them?" and in the cosmere, color is very important, so I'll just leave you at that, but most of them are going to be gems like we have. If you took a ruby from our world to Roshar, it could be Invested by the highstorm.

Sciencetor2

And spren?

Brandon Sanderson

We will RAFO that for now.

Skyward Atlanta signing (Nov. 17, 2018)

Spoiler

ceraius

This is involving gemstones and their properties on Roshar. Given that Sapphire and Ruby are actually the same crystal - corundum - differing only in their impurities - how would you explain the differences in their properties, with respect both to their essences and their function in fabrials? For example, I am assuming that two identical fabrials, one made with a sapphire and one made with a ruby, would not function the same. To take it a step further, any corundum that is not ruby red is simply called a sapphire of whichever color it happens to be (blue sapphire, green sapphire, colorless sapphire, etc.). How does this play into things; would a blue sapphire have different properties than a green one or a colorless one?

Brandon Sanderson

This was a big part of the magic for me in working on Roshar, as I wanted the gems to work differently from Scadrials metals in order to avoid repetition. The fact that many gems are basically the same thing was one of the launching points actually. Let me say that you are on the right track.

On Roshar, color of the gem is more important than actual crystalline structure.

/r/books AMA 2015 (June 2, 2015)

Spoiler

Questioner

With Soulcasting, we know what can be Soulcast based on the color of the gem. Does-- When Awakening, say you have emerald, green, Pulp. If you were Awakening straw or some other form of plant matter, if you used a source of green for the color, would it be, say, more efficient than using red?

Brandon Sanderson

So I haven't built that into the magic system yet. Part of me feels like I should have. But I did not. I want color to be relevant to each of the cosmere magics. It's kind of an essential part of it, and it's part of where we stray more into the magical sense. Like, in my books we treat magic scientifically but they're still magic. And it was a thing when I was building Stormlight, I'm like, "So the difference between these two gemstones is a matter of a slight impurity and chemically they are 99% the same thing. Am I actually going to have them do different things or not?" And my judgement call was yes, because I want color to be relevant in the cosmere.  But by that point, when I was really getting that magic system to work, I had already written Warbreaker. And I had known that I wanted color to start being a big part. I'd already written Mistborn where I worked in color in different ways

But I didn't work that into the Warbreaker magic. I felt like it already had enough restrictions. I would say my worry about the Warbreaker magic is the color feels tacked on. Like, the magic could work without it, narratively, so why is it there? And that's the question I asked myself while I was building; that's the question I continue to ask myself when I continue to work on-- for that magic system, to make sure it works for me. But my instincts say adding restrictions like that, particularly when they weren't covered in the first book, feels like the wrong way to go. It'd be like retconning the magic. It's something I considered.

Orem signing (March 10, 2018)

 

[therunner he/him]

7 hours ago, Heilven said:

I'd reckon this is in some way consuming the investiture of the person, causing them to die. I still think it cuts on a spiritual and cognitive level rather than physical, but I think that works out. So in some way, I think Vivenna's blade is more like a controlled Nightblood. It doesn't eat investiture in the quantities that Nightblood demands, but still consumes investiture.
Regardless, It's difficult to decide what it is about a shardblade that gives it its properties. I think that Vivenna's Blade and Nightblood are actually more dangerous than a Radiant Blade, because they are going to kill you straight up. A shardblade will simply sever your connection to the physical realm. This would track as for why the Fused were afraid of Vivenna's blade, as it would probably kill them permanently.

Remember that limbs cut by Shardblade also turn grey, so that is not specific to Vivenna blade.
If anything, I would say that absence of burned out eyes suggests less damage than what Shardblades does.
Fused also typically avoid Shardblades, and in Oathbringer Fused were still relatively rare, so they would not wish to suffer unneeded losses.

I doubt that Vivennas blade can kill Fused permanently, after such big deal is made of Nightblood being capable of killing them permanently.
If Fused knew that they can be killed permanently by Vivennas blade, then surely Raboniel would make mention of it, since it would be second sword that could do that, so clearly replicable. But if only Nightblood can do it, and Nightblood is special, then alternative means (like anti-light) are needed).

Also, I mean that Vivennas blade does not consume Investiture from wielder.

Quote

The more interesting question is on the properties of radiant blades and honorblades. I would expect them to have different properties, since Honorblades are made of Tanavastium and invested with pure stormlight, whereas radiant blades are made of Avastium (Alloy of honor and cultivation's god metals, I like this name) in different ratios and are invested by some combination of stormlight and lifelight (I imagine this has to be true, as spren are splinters of Honor and Cultivation, not just one or the other). So I would expect there to be some difference in properties not only between honorblades and radiant blades, but between the different types of radiant blades. 

Honorblades and Shardblades are not Invested with neither Stormlight nor Lifelight. They are both Godmetal and that is that, made of Investiture (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/6/#e247).
While I expect there to be some differences between Orders, per WoB we can treat all Shardblades as same alloy (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/372/#e11949).

Quote

We know that heavily invested objects are stronger and harder to cut, so it follows that a shardblade has unbreakable properties due to it's extreme amounts of investiture. I think the properties of uninvested Tanavium have to be important to some degree, so I hope we find out what those are at some point.

That is factually not true.
Metalminds are not harder to damage, Awakened items are not harder to damage (unless specifically Awakened with that Intent, and there are limits due to physical properties), fabrials are not harder to damage, etc.

And again, you cannot have uninvited Tanavastium, since Tanavastium is Investiture. That is like asking for dry water.

Shardblade/Honorblade being unbreakable has to do with their nature as singular entity, and also with the nature of Godmetal I think.

Quote

I think shardblades definitely destroy the investiture in a material to some degree, or maybe cause it to leak. I should be more specific. I think that any invested object is closer to the spiritual realm, and thus will attempt to hold to its spiritual ideal to some degree. So when a shardblade attempts to cut the connection in an object, the extra investiture fills in the cuts, holding the whole thing together. Eventually the extra investiture is all used up, and the object is cut through just like normal. Perhaps the reason this doesn't happen to radiant blades has to do with the relative investitures between them. Since they are the same, both resist cuts from the other radiant blade perfectly.

That is roughly how I was imaging it yes.
Though notably, it requires a lot of Investiture before objects start resisting meaningfully, as seen from duel of Vasher and Kaladin.

Quote

Compare this to shardplate, which is far less invested. When struck by any weapon, it will begin to lose the investiture holding it together. At some point, I imagine the spren simply chooses to stop taking physical form, deciding it isn't worth the possible damage.

Again, as stated before, Shardplate is about as Invested as Shardblade, see WoB (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/217/#e7299).
The reason it then takes damage must have to do with something else then relative Investiture levels. (or not just that).

Quote

"But Heilven!" You may be thinking. "Invested metalminds can be cut!". And that's certainly true. But I think that has to do with your intent. I actually think something like a shardknife would be completely incapable of cutting a metalmind without destroying all of the investiture first. In some way, I think the metalmind is still one spiritual object when cut. A shardblade has to cut in the cognitive and spiritual realms, so the metalmind would resist this. But if you were just attempting to cut it in half, I think that the metalmind wouldn't object. It doesn't really care about being in one piece. Compare this to shardplate, where the spren definitely care about being in one piece, and won't want you to cut them into pieces.

Clearly not the case, e.g. Invested sheets being cut trivially.
So metalmind must contain some amount of Investiture before it start resisting being cut in any way, and much more than that before it starts blocking Shardblade.
Notably, Bands of Mourning, the most Invested artifact on Scadrial, is not Invested enough to be considered 'Shardblade' in general sense (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/13/#e4878).

17 hours ago, alder24 said:

They did, Vasher's Awakened shirt, trousers and cloak works somehow similar to a Shardplate - giving him extra strength and protection. Not on the same level as a Shardplate, but still on a significant level on Nalthis. Not to mention they didn't know Shardplates are from spren, while they could know Shardblades are from them, as they could see deadeyes in CR. But after witnessing what Nightblood can do, I think Vasher would never want to create a plate like this.

Ah, good point.  I did not think of it, as it is such a different level from Shardplate honestly
Thanks for correction.

5 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

In the case of someone who is specifically trying to prevent the 1 shot potential of a shardblade I really like chainmail as it is the option that perhaps keeps you most mobile and flexible during the contest. Chainmail also has a benefit of needing less investiture to fill up potentially as it is a smaller mass (I could totally be wrong here and would accept that). I also think that a brigandine would make a great set of armor to invest to resist the shardblade. However, the brigandine would be more metal to fill and not have as easy of a time protecting the neck or head where a single piece of chainmail may be able to encompass the entire spine.

Yeah, but if as seen from the video, you can penetrate the armor without need to directly strike the individual chains (simply break them with blunt force, not cutting force), then chainmail cannot protect wearer very well against strikes from Shardblade, since you can shapeshift them into a large war hammer with long shard spikes.

Quote

There is some valid basis to the idea of Vivenna's blade siphoning investiture as well and perhaps destroying on a deeper level than your Rosharan shardblade as well. Maybe Hoid would be similarly scared of it if he had more knowledge of its workings. It definitely works on a different principle though. 

Bottom line. Color is important in the cosmere and if a sword is draining all of the color of its victums then it is damaging them at a spiritual level unlike anything else we have seen... not just severing the connection between the 3 realms.  

Rosharan Shardblades also turn body parts gray when they cut them. Only when severing the spine/brain do the eyes burn out, which frankly sounds like more damage then simply turning grey. Eyes being the windows to soul and what not.

Also, Rosharan Shardblades do cut on all 3 realms, so no Vivennas blade is not more powerful than Shardblade.

Spoiler

VindicationKnight

If a person in the Cosmere built a fully sentient and sapient robot would that robot have a soul? How would it interact with Shardblades?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. It would interact with Shardblades the same way that Spren do.

VindicationKnight

How does a Shardblade interact with a Spren?

Brandon Sanderson

Shardblades cut on all three realms. I'm not going to say too much here, though I might note that it's possible a robot like you say would act more like nightblood than anything else--depends on what is involved in the creation, and how you determine the difference between a robot and a golem for these purposes.

/r/books AMA 2015 (July 15, 2015)

 

Quote

Large stretch here... I personally believe that an awakener could potentially ruin enemy sources of fuel via color draining... the god kings awakening was turning everything to white. I think based on these wobs he could potentially ruin metals for all 3 metalic arts and create some huge issues for the abilities for gems to hold onto light for the long term. I also would venture to say that the god king could walk through Uritheru and absolutely wreck their fabrials and potentially damage the tower all together...

The spheres could still hold Stormlight just badly, as per WoB you quoted, so not that useful against Radiants.
And if the Radiant had spheres within Plate, Awakener could not touch those.
And in Urithiru:
SA5 spoilers

Spoiler

Now that Sibling is awake, Radiants are constantly fully fueled with Light, and their Surges are stronger and last indefinitely.
God king would get curb stomped.

 

[alder24]

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

I think shardblades definitely destroy the investiture in a material to some degree, or maybe cause it to leak. I should be more specific. I think that any invested object is closer to the spiritual realm, and thus will attempt to hold to its spiritual ideal to some degree. So when a shardblade attempts to cut the connection in an object, the extra investiture fills in the cuts, holding the whole thing together. Eventually the extra investiture is all used up, and the object is cut through just like normal. Perhaps the reason this doesn't happen to radiant blades has to do with the relative investitures between them. Since they are the same, both resist cuts from the other radiant blade perfectly. Compare this to shardplate, which is far less invested. When struck by any weapon, it will begin to lose the investiture holding it together. At some point, I imagine the spren simply chooses to stop taking physical form, deciding it isn't worth the possible damage.

I think what is happening with Shardblade cutting invested objects is similar to physical cutting - the denser the material, the harder it is to cut it. In the case of Investiture it's all about how much invested is the object, the more invested it is, the greater the investiture density inside of this object, the harder is for a Shardblade to cut it. That makes sense. Shardblades are equally dense in terms of investiture, so they fully resist being cut, Shardplates are less dense (as investiture is spread across the whole plate), and therefore they can be broken. The same goes with Halfshards, Awakened type 3 objects or metalminds, they are far less dense than a Shardblade, they only resist being cut for a moment, but they will give up eventually. Even when cutting humans or living organisms, the Shardbearer feels a bit of resistance that the human soul is making. And a Shardblade does destroy (or rather release back into SR, as investiture can't be destroyed) a bit of investiture of the cut object, but only in the place it was cut, not across the whole body.

12 hours ago, Heilven said:

So in some way, I think Vivenna's blade is more like a controlled Nightblood. It doesn't eat investiture in the quantities that Nightblood demands, but still consumes investiture.

Vivenna's blade for sure damages the soul on strike, but I don't know if that's on the same level as a Shardblade. It's like in Awakening, it drains color from the fabric, in case of her blade, it drains color from the opponent. But that does involve the soul, and damages it a bit, maybe draining some investiture from it. Like the second WoB by Tamriel said, there is a change happening in the spirit. At best the damage done by Vivenna's blade is on par with a Shardblade, but not greater. 

9 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

A body is pretty squishy and I don't know that I agree with the video @alder24 posted. I agree it will be pulled tighter but a stiff wooden back drop vs a squishy body as a back drop is quite a difference.  A few pieces broken from a spike on a hammer aren't going to weaken the point of the armor which is to stop the 1 shot. Miles didnt skip a beat while instantly healing his face brain and skull after being shot in the head and I think the same argument applies to hammer blows. The mail would certainly stop a penetrating thrust before spine severing depth and so long as you are able to heal through the damage done while protecting your spine from the 7 foot shardblade the armor is doing its job. 

That wooden plank is a bone in your body, which would be smashed and broken by a blunt impact. And your squish,y watery body is a perfect medium for the energy to traverse, right into your bones, internal organs, not to mention ruptured blood vessels and muscle damage. There is a reason why blunt weapons were in use as a primary weapon (no, swords weren't primary weapons, they were secondary weapons) for centuries. To fight effectively with a person wearing armor. Strike with a war hammer or a mace (not to mention polearms) to the head was in many cases lethal even with a helmet on. There is only a limited amount of strikes to the head that Feruchemist can take, as his healing would quickly run out. 

In normal fights, a few pieces of rings being broken is an opening in your armor, that your opponent can now explore with a dagger or a sword to cut deeply into your unprotected flesh. In fight with a Shardbearer, he can change the shape of his weapon for huge war hammer or poleaxe that smashes a large section of chainmail's rings, creating a huge opening, and then changing a Shardweapon into a thin sword or dagger to strike right into your heart or spine. This is even more dangerous than in real conditions. And this is also a reason why plate armor is better than a chainmail - you can't create such openings in a plate.

And I'm not talking about Fullborn or Miles. There are no Fullborns, and Miles is dead. Even Miles would have a lot of trouble gathering 20 kg of gold and making an armor out of it, and then he would likely need another 10 kg of gold, just for compounding to fill up that 20 kg armor with attributes. He wouldn't be able to afford it. He had no money, that's why he was stealing gold from people.

With Awakening this is much easier, as you can just put 1000 Breaths into a regular piece of armor (breastplate, helmet, chainmail, even plate armor as contrary to popular belief, plate armor doesn't restrict movement almost at all) without Awakening it and without the 9th Heightening:

Spoiler

Chris King

Can you store Breath in metal without the [Ninth] Heightening? Just put it there without Awakening, just to hide the Breath.

Brandon Sanderson

Can you hide Breath in-- Yes you can hide Breath in things.

Chris King

Metal in particular, without the [Ninth] Heightening could you put it into metal. Without the purpose of Awakening it, just storing it there.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh without the [Ninth] Heightening-- I would say yes you could.

Chris King interview (Sept. 24, 2013)

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

I think what is happening with Shardblade cutting invested objects is similar to physical cutting - the denser the material, the harder it is to cut it. In the case of Investiture it's all about how much invested is the object, the more invested it is, the greater the investiture density inside of this object, the harder is for a Shardblade to cut it. That makes sense. Shardblades are equally dense in terms of investiture, so they fully resist being cut, Shardplates are less dense (as investiture is spread across the whole plate), and therefore they can be broken. The same goes with Halfshards, Awakened type 3 objects or metalminds, they are far less dense than a Shardblade, they only resist being cut for a moment, but they will give up eventually. Even when cutting humans or living organisms, the Shardbearer feels a bit of resistance that the human soul is making. And a Shardblade does destroy (or rather release back into SR, as investiture can't be destroyed) a bit of investiture of the cut object, but only in the place it was cut, not across the whole body.

Vivenna's blade for sure damages the soul on strike, but I don't know if that's on the same level as a Shardblade. It's like in Awakening, it drains color from the fabric, in case of her blade, it drains color from the opponent. But that does involve the soul, and damages it a bit, maybe draining some investiture from it. Like the second WoB by Tamriel said, there is a change happening in the spirit. At best the damage done by Vivenna's blade is on par with a Shardblade, but not greater. 

That wooden plank is a bone in your body, which would be smashed and broken by a blunt impact. And your squish,y watery body is a perfect medium for the energy to traverse, right into your bones, internal organs, not to mention ruptured blood vessels and muscle damage. There is a reason why blunt weapons were in use as a primary weapon (no, swords weren't primary weapons, they were secondary weapons) for centuries. To fight effectively with a person wearing armor. Strike with a war hammer or a mace (not to mention polearms) to the head was in many cases lethal even with a helmet on. There is only a limited amount of strikes to the head that Feruchemist can take, as his healing would quickly run out. 

In normal fights, a few pieces of rings being broken is an opening in your armor, that your opponent can now explore with a dagger or a sword to cut deeply into your unprotected flesh. In fight with a Shardbearer, he can change the shape of his weapon for huge war hammer or poleaxe that smashes a large section of chainmail's rings, creating a huge opening, and then changing a Shardweapon into a thin sword or dagger to strike right into your heart or spine. This is even more dangerous than in real conditions. And this is also a reason why plate armor is better than a chainmail - you can't create such openings in a plate.

And I'm not talking about Fullborn or Miles. There are no Fullborns, and Miles is dead. Even Miles would have a lot of trouble gathering 20 kg of gold and making an armor out of it, and then he would likely need another 10 kg of gold, just for compounding to fill up that 20 kg armor with attributes. He wouldn't be able to afford it. He had no money, that's why he was stealing gold from people.

With Awakening this is much easier, as you can just put 1000 Breaths into a regular piece of armor (breastplate, helmet, chainmail, even plate armor as contrary to popular belief, plate armor doesn't restrict movement almost at all) without Awakening it and without the 9th Heightening:

  Hide contents

Chris King

Can you store Breath in metal without the [Ninth] Heightening? Just put it there without Awakening, just to hide the Breath.

Brandon Sanderson

Can you hide Breath in-- Yes you can hide Breath in things.

Chris King

Metal in particular, without the [Ninth] Heightening could you put it into metal. Without the purpose of Awakening it, just storing it there.

Brandon Sanderson

Oh without the [Ninth] Heightening-- I would say yes you could.

Chris King interview (Sept. 24, 2013)

 

I appreciate that wob.  Though that brings me back to my first question here.  

What makes a shardblade a shardblade?  

You might be able to stuff all of that investirure into a metal sword or a metal piece of armor but would that make it a shardblade?  

Shardblades differ from plate in the huge fact that they don't break.  

I get that asking about type 4 entities is all RAFO territory but I am trying to figure out where the ability to not be leeched into uselessness comes from.  

1000 breaths to make nightblood... he is an outlier.  

Perhaps 1000 breaths to make vivennas blade just a different command?  

If I take 1000 breaths and store them into a sword that hunk of metal will be crammed full of breaths and have the same density as the other 2.  But it won't have any sentience or purpose.  

Do you think it would still cut through realms?  Do you think it will retain its investiture as it clashes with other shardblades or do you think it will take 1 or 2 hits and then be a massive loss of 1000 breaths?  

Then we have to ask.  If it is the sentience and a command to give the item intent that allows for that lack of being leeched when hit.... 

Wouldn't an awakened brigandine actually be better at resisting shardblades than typical plate?  With its own sentience and 1000 breaths it would hold up indefinately. 

You would surely have to kill the user via blunt force at that point no?  

Furthermore.  With enough awakened items underneath that armor to augment strength and speed and dexterity wouldn't it out scale living plate after enough augmentation? 

Or does the sentience not mean anything and you will get the same level of effectiveness so long as the item has enough breath stored in it because it is just that invested.  Even if you don't awaken it and are a lower heightening?  

My thoughts used to be of needing to amass 20000+ breaths to do something like this.  

Now someone with the 5th heightening might be able to just store their 2000 breaths between armor and sword and have a similar effect.  

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I appreciate that wob.  Though that brings me back to my first question here.  

What makes a shardblade a shardblade?  

We have only 3 examples of a Shardblade:

1. Honorblades, which are self-aware pieces of god metal.
2. Shardblades, which are sentient splinters pulled into PR
3. Type 4 Awakened entities, which are sentient objects.

We also know that Seons and Skaze can become a Shardblade, if they find a way to be pulled into PR. as they are category 2, sentient splinters. There are no other examples that can cut in all 3 realms. This very much makes me think that what makes Shardblade a Shardblade is sentiency, or at least some form of self-awareness like in the case of Honorblades. That's what allows them to cut. Which does make a lot of sense. In the RoW, Kaladin vs Vasher duel, Vasher told Kaladin to dull his blade, and Syl followed it by changing her sharpness. This further supports the idea that it's spren conscious decision to cut, and because they're so invested, they have to cut in all 3 realms at once. In case of Awakened constructs, sentiency might allow them to cut, but they don't have that kind of control over it like spren, because they are programmed by Command, Nightblood is sometimes referred to as robot-spren, which would very much explain why he won't be able to decide to by "dull", as robot can't act against his programming.

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Shardblades differ from plate in the huge fact that they don't break.  

Lesser spren are far less invested than a Radiant spren, they aren't sentient so they can't cut, and most importantly, they have no Nahel Bond like Radiant spren, which anchors them in the PR. They are pulled into it by Radiant, and that bond isn't as strong as Nahel Bond. Because spren can still be damaged in CR, spren pulled into PR will become susceptible to physical damage. A single plate spren isn't as invested as Radiant spren, and if he got hit by a Shardblade, it causes him damage, shaking his bond with the PR, until it breaks apart, and plate fragment gets shattered. But that can be overcome with Stormlight, like in CR Notum got healed by it, lesser spren being fed by Stormlight makes them heal the damage, and remain anchored to the PR.

Shardblade do break, but not in normal conditions, as there is no object that is more invested than Radiant spren. But in contact with Nightblood, Honorblade got chipped off, which permanently damaged it. Nightblood is the only known entity that is more invested than a Shardblade. Which makes me speculate that if a Shardblade was hit by an object far more invested than them (not a Nightblood), it could act like a Shardplate, and their physical form might get disrupted so much that spren would retreat into normal, more cognitive form. I don't think a Shardblade would get chipped off like in contact with Nightblood, but spren will at least retreat from a physical form.

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Do you think it would still cut through realms?  Do you think it will retain its investiture as it clashes with other shardblades or do you think it will take 1 or 2 hits and then be a massive loss of 1000 breaths?  

Even if a Shardblade cuts in half a blade only invested by 1000 Breaths (which I doubt, this is too much invested and would be comparable to a Shardblade), Breaths won't get destroyed. Few of them might, but a loss of 1 or 10 isn't that much. Remember, Breath contains quite a lot of investiture.

Spoiler

little_wilson

Mi'chelle is wanting to know for a fanfic she's wanting to write if when you cut/break an object that has been Awakened if the object then "dies", or if the pieces will try to carry out the command. Also, either way, can the breaths be recovered from it?

Brandon Sanderson

The object does not die, and will try to continue its purpose. The level of damage will determine just how well it can continue. The Breaths are recoverable. (Though there could be some loss of Breaths, depending on how the item is destroyed.) There's a scene near the end where Vasher Awakens some clothing, then it gets cut down and he recovers the Breath.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A (July 8, 2009)

 

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Or does the sentience not mean anything and you will get the same level of effectiveness so long as the item has enough breath stored in it because it is just that invested.  Even if you don't awaken it and are a lower heightening?  

That's what I think. The investment level defines how well it resists a Shardblade, while sentience makes it cut in all 3 realms. And because Spren are more cognitive entities, only sometimes drawn into Physical Realm, and Breaths exist more in Physical Realm, a Shardplate made out of Breaths to a similar level of investment might be a bit more resilient to Shardblade cuts than lesser spren. But it will still get damaged by it.

 

Keep in mind, that this is mostly speculation on my part, it's hard to say what are the real reasons why Shardplates and Shardblades work the way they are.

[Heilven he/him]

8 hours ago, therunner said:

Remember that limbs cut by Shardblade also turn grey, so that is not specific to Vivenna blade.
If anything, I would say that absence of burned out eyes suggests less damage than what Shardblades does

This is true, but the greying of corpses caused by Vivenna's blade is clearly different than that of a radiant or honor blade, seeing as Adolin considers it worth mention. While cut limbs will turn a sort of unnatural grey, it's described as the sort of thing that happens to flesh without oxygen, not the skin literally going grey. I would say that the burned out eyes are indicative of the connection to the physical realm being shattered, which doesn't happen with Vivenna's blade.

I am, however, fully willing to believe that Vivenna's blade doesn't consume investiture, it only consumes color (from it's victims). 

8 hours ago, therunner said:

I doubt that Vivennas blade can kill Fused permanently, after such big deal is made of Nightblood being capable of killing them permanently.
If Fused knew that they can be killed permanently by Vivennas blade, then surely Raboniel would make mention of it, since it would be second sword that could do that, so clearly replicable. But if only Nightblood can do it, and Nightblood is special, then alternative means (like anti-light) are needed).

I think from a story perspective you are probably right. The justification I can believe is that the consumption of color is somehow damaging the connections, which is what causes the blade to be able to cut. Shardblades don't cut in the physical realm, they cut in the cognitive and spiritual realms. When Vivenna cuts people, it doesn't leave wounds. The reason I went with it consuming investiture in small amounts was because of the connection to nightblood (of course) and our ignorance on what color... is. Obviously color is important, but in a way that goes beyond just cognitive. The fact that it fuels awakening is weird, and I feel like there has to be some investiture shenanigans. But we don't have the answer to that. Importantly I just don't think Vivenna's blade straight up cuts connection, I think that it's an important side effect.

However I don't think Raboniel would mention it. She doesn't know everything, and it's more likely that the fused just had a "bad feeling" or something about the sword. They could probably tell that it was a shardblade, but with no spren. That feels like something a fused would be able to feel. The specific mention of her blade scaring the fused off is worth something, I think it's more than just them being afraid of shardblades in general.

8 hours ago, therunner said:

Honorblades and Shardblades are not Invested with neither Stormlight nor Lifelight. They are both Godmetal and that is that, made of Investiture (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/6/#e247).
While I expect there to be some differences between Orders, per WoB we can treat all Shardblades as same alloy (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/372/#e11949).

  So I remember having a discussion or reading a discussion a while back on this. I don't think that Wob is quite saying that radiant blades and honor blades aren't invested beyond being a god metal, because that would be extremely inconsistent. Radiant blades, shardplate, and honor blades are all very, very difficult to push. Like only able to be pushed on by Vin while ascending to preservation. Compare that to Lerasium or atium, which can be pushed or pulled on. I can't find a wob on that, but essentially atium can clearly be pushed on, which shouldn't be affected too much by being alloyed with electrum. Besides, it doesn't make much sense. God metals are the least dense form of investiture, and spren are massive in gaseous form. That much investiture poured into a small area would absolutely overfill the thing. Besides, we know that shardplate is easier to push on, meaning it has less investiture. That wouldn't make sense if it's all made out of the same thing with nothing extra. Radiant blades are one of the most invested things we have seen, and other god metals are clearly not as invested.

8 hours ago, therunner said:

Metalminds are not harder to damage, Awakened items are not harder to damage (unless specifically Awakened with that Intent, and there are limits due to physical properties), fabrials are not harder to damage, etc

I mean fabrials are also made out of avastium, so by all rights they should be as indestructible as plate. oh wait you mean like modern fabrials. Modern fabrials aren't highly invested though, as the stormlight is just used by the spren to do things. The exception to this is half-shards, which are highly invested by adhesion spren, and are definitely more resistant to damage. But you could argue that has to do with the investiture literally holding it together harder. Metalminds aren't highly invested either, more so than fabrials, but they can still be pushed and pulled on. I could have sworn we have been told that metalminds are literally harder to cut than normal metals to some small degree, but I could just be wrong. Awakened items are almost certainly harder to damage though, 

8 hours ago, therunner said:

Clearly not the case, e.g. Invested sheets being cut trivially

I just reread that scene, and I think it's completely inconclusive as toward my argument. If Kaladin noticed anything, it wasn't an important enough difference. It does seem like as soon as it is cut, it stops being awakened. Every time Kaladin cut one of the sheets, it fell limply to the ground. So there is something there.

I didn't mean to imply that metalminds would block a shardblade. They would probably feel like killing an animal, if I had to guess. Oh wait that's right. I found my reasoning again, there's a resistance when you cut through a person. A small one, but a noticeable one. And people are invested. But yeah, I only meant to say that a shardblade couldn't cut a metalmind without destroying it. It wouldn't be two metalminds, just two pieces of (relatively) uninvested metal.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Heilven
I said atium was alloyed with lerasium instead of electrum. whoops

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

57 minutes ago, alder24 said:

We have only 3 examples of a Shardblade:

1. Honorblades, which are self-aware pieces of god metal.
2. Shardblades, which are sentient splinters pulled into PR
3. Type 4 Awakened entities, which are sentient objects.

We also know that Seons and Skaze can become a Shardblade, if they find a way to be pulled into PR. as they are category 2, sentient splinters. There are no other examples that can cut in all 3 realms. This very much makes me think that what makes Shardblade a Shardblade is sentiency, or at least some form of self-awareness like in the case of Honorblades. That's what allows them to cut. Which does make a lot of sense. In the RoW, Kaladin vs Vasher duel, Vasher told Kaladin to dull his blade, and Syl followed it by changing her sharpness. This further supports the idea that it's spren conscious decision to cut, and because they're so invested, they have to cut in all 3 realms at once. In case of Awakened constructs, sentiency might allow them to cut, but they don't have that kind of control over it like spren, because they are programmed by Command, Nightblood is sometimes referred to as robot-spren, which would very much explain why he won't be able to decide to by "dull", as robot can't act against his programming.

Lesser spren are far less invested than a Radiant spren, they aren't sentient so they can't cut, and most importantly, they have no Nahel Bond like Radiant spren, which anchors them in the PR. They are pulled into it by Radiant, and that bond isn't as strong as Nahel Bond. Because spren can still be damaged in CR, spren pulled into PR will become susceptible to physical damage. A single plate spren isn't as invested as Radiant spren, and if he got hit by a Shardblade, it causes him damage, shaking his bond with the PR, until it breaks apart, and plate fragment gets shattered. But that can be overcome with Stormlight, like in CR Notum got healed by it, lesser spren being fed by Stormlight makes them heal the damage, and remain anchored to the PR.

Shardblade do break, but not in normal conditions, as there is no object that is more invested than Radiant spren. But in contact with Nightblood, Honorblade got chipped off, which permanently damaged it. Nightblood is the only known entity that is more invested than a Shardblade. Which makes me speculate that if a Shardblade was hit by an object far more invested than them (not a Nightblood), it could act like a Shardplate, and their physical form might get disrupted so much that spren would retreat into normal, more cognitive form. I don't think a Shardblade would get chipped off like in contact with Nightblood, but spren will at least retreat from a physical form.

Even if a Shardblade cuts in half a blade only invested by 1000 Breaths (which I doubt, this is too much invested and would be comparable to a Shardblade), Breaths won't get destroyed. Few of them might, but a loss of 1 or 10 isn't that much. Remember, Breath contains quite a lot of investiture.

  Hide contents

little_wilson

Mi'chelle is wanting to know for a fanfic she's wanting to write if when you cut/break an object that has been Awakened if the object then "dies", or if the pieces will try to carry out the command. Also, either way, can the breaths be recovered from it?

Brandon Sanderson

The object does not die, and will try to continue its purpose. The level of damage will determine just how well it can continue. The Breaths are recoverable. (Though there could be some loss of Breaths, depending on how the item is destroyed.) There's a scene near the end where Vasher Awakens some clothing, then it gets cut down and he recovers the Breath.

Barnes and Noble Book Club Q&A (July 8, 2009)

 

That's what I think. The investment level defines how well it resists a Shardblade, while sentience makes it cut in all 3 realms. And because Spren are more cognitive entities, only sometimes drawn into Physical Realm, and Breaths exist more in Physical Realm, a Shardplate made out of Breaths to a similar level of investment might be a bit more resilient to Shardblade cuts than lesser spren. But it will still get damaged by it.

 

Keep in mind, that this is mostly speculation on my part, it's hard to say what are the real reasons why Shardplates and Shardblades work the way they are.

This is in large the way I have been thinking about it as well.  Intent plays such a crucial role in the cosmere that I think a type 4 awakened entity will get far more milage out of breaths than just storing them.  

That is why I also believe that an awakened set of armor would be better suited for its job than shardplate even.  

Radiant spren > robot spren > lesser spren > super invested steel sword.

Then you titrate the amount of investiture past that.  

I imagine it is the intent of the sentient blade that allows the cutting and a sword with 1000 breaths stored in it would probably be on the same level as aluminum for blocking other shardblades but would have two major differences.  The first being that the investiture may eventually get chipped away. The second being that steel sword would be way better at its job than an aluminum sword due to the nature of steel vs aluminum.  That intent and command would likely be necessary for soul severing capacity.  

Who is to say that you couldn't awaken a piece of armoring and then further store more breaths in it as well.   

I think in the case of armor we may run into issues where flexible armor is a collection of items and not one complete form.  

Then again perception might matter there as well given that a brigandine is made with less individual pieces than a rope is made with individual strands.  If you command the whole then it would work fine.  You have no cloth without hundreds and thousands of individual strands to make the whole.  

Edit: 

9 minutes ago, Heilven said:

I just reread that scene, and I think it's completely inconclusive as toward my argument. If Kaladin noticed anything, it wasn't an important enough difference. It does seem like as soon as it is cut, it stops being awakened. Every time Kaladin cut one of the sheets, it fell limply to the ground. So there is something there.

I didn't mean to imply that metalminds would block a shardblade. They would probably feel like killing an animal, if I had to guess. Oh wait that's right. I found my reasoning again, there's a resistance when you cut through a person. A small one, but a noticeable one. And people are invested. But yeah, I only meant to say that a shardblade couldn't cut a metalmind without destroying it. It wouldn't be two metalminds, just two pieces of (relatively) uninvested metal.

The resistance of cutting through a person is interesting. Is it the innate investiture that does it? Does it feel different to cut through someone with large amounts of kinetic investiture? Or would a Godking be harder to swing through with a shardblade than the normal person? 

As far as the sheets falling and doing nothing. The breath is still there most likely and the sheet just can't work the way it was meant to anymore. With the scene written from Kal's viewpoint it also makes perfect sense for him to see them fall after cutting and not notice anything past that because he has no reason to be paying attention to that.

Edited April 15, 2023 by Tamriel Wolfsbaine

[therunner he/him]

12 minutes ago, Heilven said:

  So I remember having a discussion or reading a discussion a while back on this. I don't think that Wob is quite saying that radiant blades and honor blades aren't invested beyond being a god metal, because that would be extremely inconsistent. Radiant blades, shardplate, and honor blades are all very, very difficult to push. Like only able to be pushed on by Vin while ascending to preservation. Compare that to Lerasium or atium, which can be pushed or pulled on. I can't find a wob on that, but essentially atium can clearly be pushed on, which shouldn't be affected too much by being alloyed with electrum.

Not actually true, one Lerasium is never seen being pushed or pulled on (as afar as i know), and atium was retconned to be atium-electrum alloy, which would explain why it can be pushed/pulled (similar to why duralumin can be, despite being ~90% aluminum).

Quote

Besides, it doesn't make much sense. God metals are the least dense form of investiture, and spren are massive in gaseous form. That much investiture poured into a small area would absolutely overfill the thing. Besides, we know that shardplate is easier to push on, meaning it has less investiture. That wouldn't make sense if it's all made out of the same thing with nothing extra. Radiant blades are one of the most invested things we have seen, and other god metals are clearly not as invested.

No, godmetals are the most dense form of Investiture. Gas < liquid < solid.
What makes you think other godmetals are not as Invested?

Quote

I mean fabrials are also made out of avastium, so by all rights they should be as indestructible as plate. oh wait you mean like modern fabrials. Modern fabrials aren't highly invested though, as the stormlight is just used by the spren to do things. The exception to this is half-shards, which are highly invested by adhesion spren, and are definitely more resistant to damage. But you could argue that has to do with the investiture literally holding it together harder. Metalminds aren't highly invested either, more so than fabrials, but they can still be pushed and pulled on. I could have sworn we have been told that metalminds are literally harder to cut than normal metals to some small degree, but I could just be wrong. Awakened items are almost certainly harder to damage though, 

Awakened items don't seem to be more difficult to damage, not unless the command somehow specifies it.
Could be misremembering Warbreaker, but nothing there suggest awakened items are more sturdy.
 

Quote

I just reread that scene, and I think it's completely inconclusive as toward my argument. If Kaladin noticed anything, it wasn't an important enough difference. It does seem like as soon as it is cut, it stops being awakened. Every time Kaladin cut one of the sheets, it fell limply to the ground. So there is something there.

Kaladin notes that some still writhe on the ground as if in wind, so either they retain breath, or Shardblade completely destroyed breathes that were awakening the items.
Or Vasher was cleaning up after himself in the middle of the fight, and had timing precise enough to take Breath back the moment item got destroyed.

Also, technically the fight shows that somehow Vasher must be of 10th Heightening, because he awakened the sheets without audible command. So he must have 50 000+ breaths. Did he steal Peacegivers Treasure? Is that why Azure is after him?
 

Quote

I didn't mean to imply that metalminds would block a shardblade. They would probably feel like killing an animal, if I had to guess. Oh wait that's right. I found my reasoning again, there's a resistance when you cut through a person. A small one, but a noticeable one. And people are invested. But yeah, I only meant to say that a shardblade couldn't cut a metalmind without destroying it. It wouldn't be two metalminds, just two pieces of (relatively) uninvested metal.

Ah, makes sense.

[alder24]

14 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

This is in large the way I have been thinking about it as well.  Intent plays such a crucial role in the cosmere that I think a type 4 awakened entity will get far more milage out of breaths than just storing them.  

That is why I also believe that an awakened set of armor would be better suited for its job than shardplate even.  

That's not what I said. Sentiency provides the ability to cut in all 3 realms, but the investiture makes it resistant to being cut. The sentiency might not provide any additional resistance at all. So an Awakened sword type 4 with 1000 Breaths might resist a Shardblade cut in the same way that a sword that just holds 1000 Breaths without any command. But only the Awakened sword can cut in 3 realms.

18 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I imagine it is the intent of the sentient blade that allows the cutting and a sword with 1000 breaths stored in it would probably be on the same level as aluminum for blocking other shardblades but would have two major differences.  The first being that the investiture may eventually get chipped away.

1000 Breaths is a lot. It might be comparable to a Shardblade and could fully resist it.

19 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Who is to say that you couldn't awaken a piece of armoring and then further store more breaths in it as well.   

Rules of Awakening. You can't Awaken something that's already Awakened, and putting Breaths into something is a bit Awakening. And Investiture resists investiture. Unless you want to heal the damage, like in the case of giving Lifeless another Breath, you won't just put Breaths into an already Awakened object.

But again, this whole topic is pure speculation at this point. There are no answers to those questions now.

 

11 minutes ago, therunner said:

Kaladin notes that some still writhe on the ground as if in wind, so either they retain breath, or Shardblade completely destroyed breathes that were awakening the items.
Or Vasher was cleaning up after himself in the middle of the fight, and had timing precise enough to take Breath back the moment item got destroyed.

Awakening relies heavily on mental image. If Vasher imagined whole sheets doing their thing, cutting them across would break that mental image and newly cut pieces of sheets won't be fitting that image (different shape etc). Some might still try to do it, as like in the WoB I posted it was said "The level of damage will determine just how well it can continue" - being cut in half by a Shardblade is a pretty big damage. But I believe most of Breaths would still be intact.

15 minutes ago, therunner said:

Also, technically the fight shows that somehow Vasher must be of 10th Heightening, because he awakened the sheets without audible command. So he must have 50 000+ breaths. Did he steal Peacegivers Treasure? Is that why Azure is after him?

Unlikely, his BioChromatic aura would be very visible, but maybe he would be able to suppress it. I was doubtful at first but I found the WoB saying that you can suppress your Breaths like a Divine Breath. However he can just whisper commands, and what's more important, Commands must be spoken in a native language, Kaladin would not be able to understand him.

Spoiler

Mark

It was said throughout the book that you cannot just give some of your breath, but must give all of it. Perhaps I'm simply forgetting part of the book where this changes, but wouldn't Vasher have to give his Returned breath along with his others?

Brandon Sanderson

The "You must give up all of your Breath, not some" line was mostly perpetuated by Denth, who is saying it to Vivenna to stop her from giving away her Breath to all the people she passes. It is a lie. Now, it's a lie that's commonly accepted by a lot of people. But it's still a lie—as we find out midway through the book, you can stick some of your Breath in an object and bring it to life, and then recover that Breath. So it's very easy to give some of your Breath to someone if you know the logical steps to take. Invest most of it into an object, give what you have to someone else, then pull back what you Invested. So it's flat-out proven in the novel that what Denth is telling her is wrong. Now, he could dance around that lie by pretending to be the ignorant mercenary—he's just perpetuating a falsehood that many people believe. But it is a lie. In fact, a lot of the things people believe about BioChromatic Breath isn't true.

One of the things I was trying with this book was to take a few steps back from MISTBORN, where so much was understood. I feel that the approach I took in MISTBORN is right for that book, and yet people have so much superstition regarding all sorts of science. I worry sometimes that there isn't enough superstition in my books, regarding magic as science. What people believed and what people knew and what people understood was so varied and confused throughout most of history, that I worry that I lack realism in that. Vasher brings up at several points in the book that they don't know a whole lot and that people perpetuate a lot of myths and stories and lies.

Vasher has learned to suppress his Returned Breath. When it's suppressed, it's as if it doesn't exist to him. He's Invested it into a place within himself, much like you can Invest your Breaths into a shirt, and when he gives away the rest of his Breaths, he doesn't give that one away. He could split off others of his Breaths if he wanted to—he's learned to do that, so that he could give a few Breaths and not all. It's just a matter of practicing as long as he has. But even people who aren't as practiced as him do it all the time when they Invest an object with not all of their Breath but just enough to bring it to life

Goodreads Fantasy Book Discussion Warbreaker Q&A (Jan. 18, 2010)

 

[Heilven he/him]

10 minutes ago, therunner said:

No, godmetals are the most dense form of Investiture. Gas < liquid < solid.
What makes you think other godmetals are not as Invested?

I think I'm remembering something that I can't source properly. Honestly I think it requires too many tricks to make it make narrative sense the way I'm thinking about it, so yeah it's probably the same as matter. The reason I think radiant blades are so much more invested comes from This wob. Shardblades are extremely difficult to push or pull on, but atium is no big deal. I get that atium is an alloy of atium and electrum, but it's different than duralumin. duralumin is a different thing from aluminum, and aluminum is weird. If atium was as invested as a shardblade, then it would be adding a ton of extra investiture, enough so that anyone would notice it. If metalminds are noticeably more difficult to push and pull on, nalatium would have to be. I believe he's been asked this in the past, and the explanation has been that godmetals are naturally harder to push on, but not to a significant degree. We don't have any indication of whether lerasium could have been pushed or pulled on, so that's not really any evidence in either direction. Vin never tried pushing or pulling on the lerasium.

23 minutes ago, therunner said:

Awakened items don't seem to be more difficult to damage, not unless the command somehow specifies it.

Nightblood likely doesn't have any specific commands that strengthen it, yet is so strong it can stop a shardblade. Same with vivenna's blade. I think you need a hell of a lot of investiture before it starts noticeably becoming stronger. Honestly I might be confusing theory for fact. I think it's just consistent if heavily invested objects are bound more tightly together, seeing as they are closer to the spiritual realm.

[Duxredux he/him]

I'd give a lot of slack on how closely we look at Era 1 Mistborn mechanics on the Cosmere scale such as the reason why a retcon was needed at all to explain that the original Atium doesn't work like how Godmetals work since then. Brandon's good, but that was from 15 years ago, and he most likely didn't have all of the nitty-gritty planned in (otherwise we'd have to start asking if there are Mistings and Ferrings that can only use specific alloys of Atium and the other metals, or maybe even alloys of any of the Godmetals).

 

Here's perhaps a few places to look at Investiture resistance to see if anything sticks out to anyone. Investiture Type could potentially mean a lot of things.

1. Static vs kinetic Investiture

2. The state the Investiture is in (gaseous, liquid, solid)

3. The associated Shard (or the difference between Breath and Stormlight)

 

I'm going back and forth on how much of Investiture resistance is Intent and how much is raw power or density. I'm guessing both are major factors. Notable is Teft partially summoning Phendorana in a vaporous state to block Jezrien's Blade (ah, Teft). I haven't checked specifics, but I'd a guess that Kaladin has been injured by a Shardblade when holding more Stormlight than a Half-Shard.

A simple in-world experiment that I wish we had the results for is if an infused diamond resists a Shardblade, which can be iterated with varying levels of Stormlight. Someone should get Sigzil on that.

I'm also curious as to if we'll ever see Dalinar manifest the Stormfatherblade again and how it would compare to these other Blades (closest to a Shardblade we've seen so far). It should also be noted that Nightblood's sheath was still functional as a sheath after that one Fuzed used it to repeatedly block Szeth, when an Honorblade got chipped when hit with Nightblood. No way was that Awakened Aluminum either.

[therunner he/him]

4 hours ago, Heilven said:

Shardblades are extremely difficult to push or pull on, but atium is no big deal. I get that atium is an alloy of atium and electrum, but it's different than duralumin. duralumin is a different thing from aluminum, and aluminum is weird. If atium was as invested as a shardblade, then it would be adding a ton of extra investiture, enough so that anyone would notice it. If metalminds are noticeably more difficult to push and pull on, nalatium would have to be. I believe he's been asked this in the past, and the explanation has been that godmetals are naturally harder to push on, but not to a significant degree. We don't have any indication of whether lerasium could have been pushed or pulled on, so that's not really any evidence in either direction. Vin never tried pushing or pulling on the lerasium.

Duralumin vs Aluminum is exactly the same thing as Nalatium vs Atium.
Both are alloys vs pure metal, and in one case pure metal is definatly not pushable, yet alloy behaves as any other metal.
In the other case, alloy behaves as any other metal, and godmetals should resist pushes/pulls, based on the fact that Investiture resists Investiture, and godmetals are pure Investiture.

4 hours ago, Heilven said:

Nightblood likely doesn't have any specific commands that strengthen it, yet is so strong it can stop a shardblade. Same with vivenna's blade. I think you need a hell of a lot of investiture before it starts noticeably becoming stronger. Honestly I might be confusing theory for fact. I think it's just consistent if heavily invested objects are bound more tightly together, seeing as they are closer to the spiritual realm.

Both of those are Awakened blades, so they resist Shardblades not by virtue of being stronger material, but through being Invested enough to block Shardblade.

It does raise question if you could brake Vivennas blade, by pushing on the flat.

Quote

I'm going back and forth on how much of Investiture resistance is Intent and how much is raw power or density. I'm guessing both are major factors. Notable is Teft partially summoning Phendorana in a vaporous state to block Jezrien's Blade (ah, Teft). I haven't checked specifics, but I'd a guess that Kaladin has been injured by a Shardblade when holding more Stormlight than a Half-Shard.

At that point Phendorana was nearly fully summoned, as Teft was on cusp of swearing 4th Ideal (or in the process of it).
So she was manifested enough.

Half-shards are not strong by virtue of just the Stormlight they hold, but through application of captured Nahel spren.

35 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

A simple in-world experiment that I wish we had the results for is if an infused diamond resists a Shardblade, which can be iterated with varying levels of Stormlight. Someone should get Sigzil on that.

Since person holding Stormlight does not resist anymore than person not holding Stormlight, infused diamond should behave exactly as regular diamond.

[Frustration he/him]

2 hours ago, Duxredux said:

I'd give a lot of slack on how closely we look at Era 1 Mistborn mechanics on the Cosmere scale such as the reason why a retcon was needed at all to explain that the original Atium doesn't work like how Godmetals work since then. Brandon's good, but that was from 15 years ago, and he most likely didn't have all of the nitty-gritty planned in (otherwise we'd have to start asking if there are Mistings and Ferrings that can only use specific alloys of Atium and the other metals, or maybe even alloys of any of the Godmetals).

The Atium retcon actually dates back to before HoA, and the Atium mistings there were actually electrum mistings

Spoiler

/u/AAKS_

My understanding is that Brandon thinks it is a plothole that Lerasium can be burned by Scadrian (regardless of if they are mistings/mistborn) but Atium can't.

His solution is to retcon the Pits to naturally produce an Atium/Electrum alloy, presumably by the design of Preservation. Therefore we don't know what pure Atium looks like or does when used in any magic.

Peter Ahlstrom

We do know what it does. It’s on the Allomancy poster, and the effect appeared one time at the end of Hero of Ages.

LewsTherinTelescope

Interesting. Do you know if he had already conceived the retcon by the time the poster was written, or if that line about pure atium just turned out to fit really well retroactively?

Peter Ahlstrom

The retcon is way older than a lot of people assume.

LewsTherinTelescope

Does this mean he had it in mind by the time Hero of Ages released (since the first public version of the poster dates to 2008), or just that it's old but not sure exactly how old?

Peter Ahlstrom

Remember that what's in the books is filtered through the understanding of the characters. So even if Brandon planned it from the beginning, if the characters didn't know about it, it's not going to come out in the book.

And see this thread reply from 2009.

Footnote: The link is to a post on the Timewaster's Guide forums, where Peter responds to someone asking about whether atium is an alloy by saying he now knows enough to confirm or deny the theory, but is not allowed to.
General Reddit 2022 (Dec. 4, 2022)

Xais56

Brandon has said that everyone ought to be able to burn Atium, like they can all burn Lerasium, and the fact that they can't was an oversight on his part that he would've done different in hindsight.

Maybe now he's had an in-universe reason to re-write the laws of allomancy it's back to his intended concept; Mistborn burn all 16 base metals, mistings burn one base metal, non-allomancers can only burn godmetal.

Peter Ahlstrom

My explanation for this is that Preservation somehow caused all naturally occurring atium to form as an alloy of atium and electrum. The atium Mistings were actually electrum Mistings.

Xais56

It's a very tidy solution, but it creates the maddening question of what does pure atium do?

Peter Ahlstrom

That answer has already been revealed canonically. RAFO.

Footnote: It has since been clarified that the effect was revealed on the Table of Allomantic Metals poster and seen at the end of The Hero of Ages.
General Reddit 2021 (Nov. 2, 2021)

Brandon has just been playing us for fools for over twelve years.

[Heilven he/him]

1 hour ago, therunner said:

Duralumin vs Aluminum is exactly the same thing as Nalatium vs Atium.
Both are alloys vs pure metal, and in one case pure metal is definatly not pushable, yet alloy behaves as any other metal.
In the other case, alloy behaves as any other metal, and godmetals should resist pushes/pulls, based on the fact that Investiture resists Investiture, and godmetals are pure Investiture.

Aluminum has no spiritual or cognitive presence, and thus cannot be pushed on. Duralumin isn't aluminum identity wise, so it does have a cognitive presence and can be pushed on. For the purposes of the cosmere it's a different metal. If pure atium should resist pushes just like shardblades, then you can't push on it because of all the extra investiture. Add in some electrum, even 90% electrum, and it should still be very difficult to push on. All the investiture is still there, it's just less dense. It should at least be noticeable, given how they can tell the difference between normal metal and a metalmind

[Frustration he/him]

9 minutes ago, Heilven said:

Aluminum has no spiritual or cognitive presence, and thus cannot be pushed on.

That is not true. Everything has a spiritual and cognitive presence, nothing exists on just one realm.