Cosmere Connections

[Dunkum he/him]

21 minutes ago, Werewolff Studios said:

This is a fair point to consider. One thing worth mentioning is that Yumi never talks about the other yoki-hijo having unnaturally long lives during her conversations in the book. They all seemed to live (according to memories prior to the machine) a fairly typical live span. Maybe it's due to their Invested nature manifesting kind of like a Nahel Bond - ie, the spirits gift a portion of their strength to the yoki-hijo at birth, suffusing their spiritweb. It's just a lot more Investiture than the likes of a Radiant. Only a theory though. 

yea, I did consider that. of course the answer could always come down to cognitive shenanigans - they age because they think they should, in spite of the massive investiture pile. also possible that she just doesn't know - her knowledge even of the others is pretty limited. or maybe the spirits usually withdraw their gifts after a while if the yoki-hijo becomes complacent and their skills start to decline. or any number of other things that may or may not apply. I'm not trying to claim that she would definitely live longer than usual, just that it isn't necessarily guaranteed that she wouldn't either, given how invested she is.

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

42 minutes ago, Dunkum said:

 I'm not trying to claim that she would definitely live longer than usual, just that it isn't necessarily guaranteed that she wouldn't either, given how invested she is.

Yep, that's valid. Would be good question for the eventual spoiler stream, I reckon 

Edit: One thought I've just had regarding this - the yoki-hijo are chosen/ Invested at birth, meaning their soul has always been highly Invested. Since they don't stay a baby forever, their soul likely accepts that higher level of Investiture as 'normal', similar to how a standard human or a Mistborn accepts their innate Investiture as 'normal'. Compare this to Elantrians and 5th Heightening Awakeners, which have their souls/ spiritwebs changed at a certain point, unsyncing their physical body, cognitive mind and spiritual aspect.

Not sure how much this plays into things with Yumi, but worth considering. 

Edited July 5, 2023 by Werewolff Studios

[Bremen]

2 hours ago, RedBlue said:

Which implies normal yoki-hijo, who are presumably just as Invested as Yumi, have normal life spans. 

I've actually been wondering about that. We know far too little about the Yuki-Hijo system to make any certain predictions. Perhaps the Hijo withdraw their blessings when a Yuki-Hijo retires?

Perhaps I'm wrong about large amounts of Investiture granting longer lifespans.

I swear there was a WoB years ago about being heavily Invested effecting aging, but I could not find it. I could also be misremembering Shardcast discussion about a WoB... the two tend to blur together

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

1 hour ago, Bremen said:

I swear there was a WoB years ago about being heavily Invested effecting aging, but I could not find it. I could also be misremembering Shardcast discussion about a WoB... the two tend to blur together

There's these two that I found talking about Rsyn after she took up the Dawnshard, which is a very dense chunk of Investiture likely unkeyed to any Shard. 

Unfortunately, it's currently RAFO'd  

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Zachrandir

Does this mean that Rysn is immortal now? If so that's going to start causing some questions if she stops aging.

Also, would Hoid be able to tell that Rysn bears a Dawnshard? Solely from having born one before? (Maybe he'd be able to sense it with Breaths or some other mystery Investiture.)

I also want to see what would happen if you stabbed a Dawnshard (/Dawnshard bearing person) with Nightblood.

Brandon Sanderson

These kinds of questions are why I gave a preemptive RAFO.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

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SheHartLiss

Does that mean Rysn is now immortal?

Is a Dawnshard a Shard along the same lines as Odium/Honor or is it a combination of 4 of that type of shard? Or are Dawnshards entirely separate?

Brandon Sanderson

RAFO on most! But the Dawnshards predate the Shattering, so they're something other than traditional Shards. Similar, but distinct in some ways.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 12, 2020)

 

[GeoMantrix]

On 7/2/2023 at 5:51 AM, Awakened rock stacker said:

Do you think the 4 scholars who created the machine are from nalthis?

Share your opinions.

I favor "yes" because it's mentioned they are not like other scholars from the area.

It might explain why Zahel describes himself as a fossil, as if he managed to be killed somehow.  The place we run into trouble is in the storyline of the 5 scholars, at what point there would have been 4 who could have been working together.  I'm guessing it was 5 minus Vasher, at some point between him making Nightblood and before he felt compelled to silence Shashara.

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

3 minutes ago, GeoMantrix said:

I favor "yes" because it's mentioned they are not like other scholars from the area.

It might explain why Zahel describes himself as a fossil, as if he managed to be killed somehow.  The place we run into trouble is in the storyline of the 5 scholars, at what point there would have been 4 who could have been working together.  I'm guessing it was 5 minus Vasher, at some point between him making Nightblood and before he felt compelled to silence Shashara.

I also favour them being Nalthian, but I don't believe they were specifically the Five Scholars, as we know who those five were/ are already, and we know how three of them  (Arsteel, Shashara and Denth) died, and none of them were turned into the shroud.

That being said, there may be a possibility that the Five Scholars gifted the machine to the four on Komashi. Depends on how far in the future Yumi and the Nightmare Painters' set.

The reason Vasher describes himself as a fossil is likely due to his nature of being a Returned; a Cognitive Shadow. Similar to a fossil being a 'copy' of the original creature, he considers himself a 'copy' of his original soul. Plus, in order to become a Returned, you have to die once in the first place and then be brought back by Endowment. 

[Bastor]

Lots of Dragon mentions oddly:

• Painter thinks of heroes slaying dragons
• Year of the dragon was mentioned (thought this can just be an asian reference)
• Dragon Eating Bowl of Noodles at the carnival
• The buildings in Torio City has sculptures of dragons (or at least the illusion of it)

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

8 minutes ago, Bastor said:

Lots of Dragon mentions oddly:

• Painter thinks of heroes slaying dragons
• Year of the dragon was mentioned (thought this can just be an asian reference)
• Dragon Eating Bowl of Noodles at the carnival
• The buildings in Torio City has sculptures of dragons (or at least the illusion of it)

Great point! Especially with the Sho Del on the nearby planet. Fain influence certainly seems to crop up throughout. 

[RedBlue]

I noticed the references to dragons, too.

I think this might be a situation where a dragon showed up in the distant past and deliberately seeded a bunch of dragon legends in case there was a use for an impressed population in the future. According to Tress, that’s a thing they do.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

One thing more. Design can turn into a blade. Hoid has reached the second ideal.

[Argenti he/him]

On 7/4/2023 at 7:40 PM, Werewolff Studios said:

5+ Heightening Nalthians make for a better argument. It's hard to say exactly what effect it has when conflicting with their Cognitive and Spiritual aspects though, as I don't think we've seen anyone at that Heightening that wasn't also a Returned (unless you count Hoid, but he's weird).

 

Rysn has the side effects of several Heightenings. High investiture means Heightenings.

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tskyeguye

From Rysn's observations in the epilogue, it seems like she has a lot of the same aspects of a Fifth Heightening/Returned at the least. Is this because her Dawnshard is particularly connected to Endowment or because the effects of a certain level of Investment result in similar effects?

Brandon Sanderson

The latter.

Skrimyt

Interesting. So are actively Surgebinding Radiants or metal-burning Allomancers just not Invested enough to gain those passive effects, or do they not experience perfect pitch/color/etc. because their Investiture is just not as tightly bound to their Spiritweb as Endowment's Breaths or a Dawnshard would be?

Brandon Sanderson

Be aware that the two groups you mention don't generally hold much Investiture themselves, at least not in large quantities over time. More in Surgebinding. Almost none in Allomancy.

But RAFO to specifics.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

[Firesong she/her]

Yeah, Heightening isn't really a Nalthian thing, it was just studied most on Nalthis due to the fact that they had a very scientific view on Invested Arts compared to other planets of their time. They also had a system that was more measurable, and also people that actually retained Investiture instead of just pulling it out of the Spiritual Realm and using it instantly. 

Holding onto any large amount of Investiture causes those effects, although not the ones directly tied to Awakening, of course. As Brandon stated in the aforementioned WoB. We have also seen at points people confused high levels of Investiture for Heightening such as Riino with Kaladin. Heightening is just the results of large amounts of Investiture being held onto by a being.