Roseite Gemhearts

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

So, my thoughts have been going in weird circles lately, and I just thought of something. Humans can, theoretically, bond with Lesser Spren in what's not quite a Nahel Bond, but something that would still produce some effect, likely something that bends how physics applies to the subject, making them extremely light, or buoyant, or make them immune to air resistance, that sort of thing. However, I realized that in cases where we see that happen, i.e the Greatshells or Singers, they all have Gemhearts. I began to wonder how a Human could bond a Lesser Spren without one, and how they could improvise the equivalent of a Gemheart to do so. I eventually realized that some animals like Skyeels may not have Gemhearts but can still bond with Spren, so the Gemheart may not be necessary. However, I then remembered this: Roseite Aetherbound, like Prasanva, have a chunk of crystal embedded in their bodies, which could act like a Gemheart.

So, a couple of questions here:

1. Can Roseite, as a crystal, hold Light or a Spren inside?
2. If it can, would a Roseite Aether Bud count as a Gemheart? Like, if a Singer saw it, would they get distressed thinking your Gemheart formed in your hand like a genetic defect?
3. If you can infuse the Roseite bud with a Spren, would trapping one inside act like a bond, and could you then use it to do things like achieve weightlessness, or change forms like a Singer?

[Werewolff Studios he/him]

45 minutes ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

So, my thoughts have been going in weird circles lately, and I just thought of something. Humans can, theoretically, bond with Lesser Spren in what's not quite a Nahel Bond, but something that would still produce some effect, likely something that bends how physics applies to the subject, making them extremely light, or buoyant, or make them immune to air resistance, that sort of thing. However, I realized that in cases where we see that happen, i.e the Greatshells or Singers, they all have Gemhearts. I began to wonder how a Human could bond a Lesser Spren without one, and how they could improvise the equivalent of a Gemheart to do so. I eventually realized that some animals like Skyeels may not have Gemhearts but can still bond with Spren, so the Gemheart may not be necessary. However, I then remembered this: Roseite Aetherbound, like Prasanva, have a chunk of crystal embedded in their bodies, which could act like a Gemheart.

So, a couple of questions here:

1. Can Roseite, as a crystal, hold Light or a Spren inside?
2. If it can, would a Roseite Aether Bud count as a Gemheart? Like, if a Singer saw it, would they get distressed thinking your Gemheart formed in your hand like a genetic defect?
3. If you can infuse the Roseite bud with a Spren, would trapping one inside act like a bond, and could you then use it to do things like achieve weightlessness, or change forms like a Singer?

Ooh! Very interesting theory crafting indeed! Here's my two cents.

1. I don't know how well crystalline Roseite would go at holding Light or Spren. We know different forms of Investiture (as in keyed to specific Shards) tend to repel one another. It's more likely that the two forms wouldn't 'click' together or, if they did, that the Aether would feed on it similar to how it did the unkeyed Dor. 

2. That's more likely, I think. The Singer would see a heavily Invested gem - I feel they could mistake it for a gemheart, yeah.

3. If they don't repel and this is possible, I feel it would be more like what we see with Venli. The Aether's probably stronger than the Lesser Spren, so would likely act similar to how Timbre does with the lesser spren that gives Venli her envoyform. 

 

[alder24]

10 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

So, my thoughts have been going in weird circles lately, and I just thought of something. Humans can, theoretically, bond with Lesser Spren in what's not quite a Nahel Bond, but something that would still produce some effect, likely something that bends how physics applies to the subject, making them extremely light, or buoyant, or make them immune to air resistance, that sort of thing. However, I realized that in cases where we see that happen, i.e the Greatshells or Singers, they all have Gemhearts. I began to wonder how a Human could bond a Lesser Spren without one, and how they could improvise the equivalent of a Gemheart to do so. I eventually realized that some animals like Skyeels may not have Gemhearts but can still bond with Spren, so the Gemheart may not be necessary. 

They don't need a gemheart for that. They can form a bond with Lesser Spren just like they form one with True Spren. It's harder without a gemheart, but if a gemheart was necessary, then Brandon would say humans can't form a bond with Lesser Spren, because humans have no way of having a gemheart.

Spoiler

Fantasy Faction

Could any type of spren bond with a person (even if the results wouldn't be a Knight Radiant)? Or only the ones associated with a branch of the Knights?

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh, that's an excellent question. This is something theoretically possible for a lesser spren to achieve.

Fantasy Faction interview (March 24, 2014)

 

10 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

However, I then remembered this: Roseite Aetherbound, like Prasanva, have a chunk of crystal embedded in their bodies, which could act like a Gemheart.

So, a couple of questions here:

1. Can Roseite, as a crystal, hold Light or a Spren inside?
2. If it can, would a Roseite Aether Bud count as a Gemheart? Like, if a Singer saw it, would they get distressed thinking your Gemheart formed in your hand like a genetic defect?
3. If you can infuse the Roseite bud with a Spren, would trapping one inside act like a bond, and could you then use it to do things like achieve weightlessness, or change forms like a Singer?

Interesting question. I don't think this would work. Roseite isn't one of 10 polestones, so it likely can't hold lights and spren very well. Moreover it's invested with Aether's investiture, and investiture resist investiture. Forcing any light into that would be impossible under normal circumstances (Raboniel might unmade an Aetherbound), not to mention trapping a spren in that. 

And I wouldn't be surprised if Singer's gemstones were changing depending on which spren they bond with, to match with their type and accommodate them well. If that's true, you would need a specific type of gemstone to bond a spren, just like in Fabrials. Roseite isn't one of them.

But Roseite would count as a kind of gemheart, which is already filled with a bound entity - Prime Aether. It would be more similar to Yelig-Nar, which grows gems and has a huge gemheart-like structure replacing chest, which functions like a gemheart.

 

Edit: But there is this WoB:

Spoiler

Ok-Row1050

If a kandra with a crystal True Body made their way to Roshar, could they use their crystal bones like a gemheart?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they could. That is an excellent question.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by alder24

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

12 hours ago, alder24 said:

They don't need a gemheart for that. They can form a bond with Lesser Spren just like they form one with True Spren. It's harder without a gemheart, but if a gemheart was necessary, then Brandon would say humans can't form a bond with Lesser Spren, because humans have no way of having a gemheart.

  Reveal hidden contents

Fantasy Faction

Could any type of spren bond with a person (even if the results wouldn't be a Knight Radiant)? Or only the ones associated with a branch of the Knights?

Brandon Sanderson

Ooh, that's an excellent question. This is something theoretically possible for a lesser spren to achieve.

Fantasy Faction interview (March 24, 2014)

 

Interesting question. I don't think this would work. Roseite isn't one of 10 polestones, so it likely can't hold lights and spren very well. Moreover it's invested with Aether's investiture, and investiture resist investiture. Forcing any light into that would be impossible under normal circumstances (Raboniel might unmade an Aetherbound), not to mention trapping a spren in that. 

And I wouldn't be surprised if Singer's gemstones were changing depending on which spren they bond with, to match with their type and accommodate them well. If that's true, you would need a specific type of gemstone to bond a spren, just like in Fabrials. Roseite isn't one of them.

But Roseite would count as a kind of gemheart, which is already filled with a bound entity - Prime Aether. It would be more similar to Yelig-Nar, which grows gems and has a huge gemheart-like structure replacing chest, which functions like a gemheart.

 

Edit: But there is this WoB:

  Reveal hidden contents

Ok-Row1050

If a kandra with a crystal True Body made their way to Roshar, could they use their crystal bones like a gemheart?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, they could. That is an excellent question.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

Now I have to follow up in this thread with a question of my own.  What exactly can these spren trapped in gemhearts do?  If it is all RoW stuff I will be a while getting the answer (spoilers welcome) as life is preventing me from good reading time.  

I think it is a really interesting concept I had not thought of. I love Kandra and am always looking for a way to boost one a bit beyond the typical tool kit.  Do you think there is a combination of spren in a gemheart that could bring a kandra without a blessing of potency near that level of physical power?  Or would it at most augment them in a way that would negate some disadvantages that a non potency kandra would have against a potency kandra?  

 

[alder24]

10 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Now I have to follow up in this thread with a question of my own.  What exactly can these spren trapped in gemhearts do?  If it is all RoW stuff I will be a while getting the answer (spoilers welcome) as life is preventing me from good reading time.  

Of course it depends on the type of spren. Spren themself don't do anything in a gemheart - they're just bound. But they give a specific effect - Mandra gives a decreased weight, Windspren gives Singers a Nimbleform, Painspren gives a Warform, Lifespren a Mateform etc. 

In the case of non-Singer species the effects wouldn't be so visible. Some increase in strength, dexterity or libido (for spren mentioned above) would be the most possible outcomes. I doubt there would be any noticeable changes to the body, as even Radiants bonding with True Spren don't have them. Maybe bonding with Voidspren, who grats forms of powers, like with Stormspren, would grant some very rudimentary access to Surges (instead of shooting lightning they might be able to create an electric charge on their skin or something).

10 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Do you think there is a combination of spren in a gemheart that could bring a kandra without a blessing of potency near that level of physical power? Or would it at most augment them in a way that would negate some disadvantages that a non potency kandra would have against a potency kandra?  

Likely a Painspren. To what extent would it change attributes of a Kandra is speculative. Likely not as much as how Warform Singers are changed (because Kandra aren't native to Roshar), and likely below what the Blessing of Potency grants, but still the effects would be significant.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

On 7/5/2023 at 5:16 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

So, my thoughts have been going in weird circles lately, and I just thought of something. Humans can, theoretically, bond with Lesser Spren in what's not quite a Nahel Bond, but something that would still produce some effect, likely something that bends how physics applies to the subject, making them extremely light, or buoyant, or make them immune to air resistance, that sort of thing. However, I realized that in cases where we see that happen, i.e the Greatshells or Singers, they all have Gemhearts. I began to wonder how a Human could bond a Lesser Spren without one, and how they could improvise the equivalent of a Gemheart to do so. I eventually realized that some animals like Skyeels may not have Gemhearts but can still bond with Spren, so the Gemheart may not be necessary. However, I then remembered this: Roseite Aetherbound, like Prasanva, have a chunk of crystal embedded in their bodies, which could act like a Gemheart.

So, a couple of questions here:

1. Can Roseite, as a crystal, hold Light or a Spren inside?
2. If it can, would a Roseite Aether Bud count as a Gemheart? Like, if a Singer saw it, would they get distressed thinking your Gemheart formed in your hand like a genetic defect?
3. If you can infuse the Roseite bud with a Spren, would trapping one inside act like a bond, and could you then use it to do things like achieve weightlessness, or change forms like a Singer?

My question would be if roseite holding a spren longterm would be viable or if it would disappear or cost too much water maintenance wise to be worth it.  Same question I have with breaths... could an awakener awaken roseite weapons or armor and still retrieve those breaths back or would the breaths feed the roseite until they ran out weakening the awakened command until they permanently disappear and the roseite turns to dust again?  

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

My question would be if roseite holding a spren longterm would be viable or if it would disappear or cost too much water maintenance wise to be worth it.  Same question I have with breaths... could an awakener awaken roseite weapons or armor and still retrieve those breaths back or would the breaths feed the roseite until they ran out weakening the awakened command until they permanently disappear and the roseite turns to dust again?  

I stand by the idea that the Aetherbound needs to be Invested to use Investiture to fuel the Aether, not the Aether itself, though you could maybe manage to keep the Aether from decaying once separated by Investing it in some way. But if you Awakened Roseite, probably the Breaths would just be inside the Roseite, Awakening them to do what you want without actually helping sustain the Aether. You'd want to retrieve them before the Aether begins decaying since you'd lose the Breaths if the mass vanishes completely, or lose part of them if only some of it decays by the time you retrieve it.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

3 hours ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

I stand by the idea that the Aetherbound needs to be Invested to use Investiture to fuel the Aether, not the Aether itself, though you could maybe manage to keep the Aether from decaying once separated by Investing it in some way. But if you Awakened Roseite, probably the Breaths would just be inside the Roseite, Awakening them to do what you want without actually helping sustain the Aether. You'd want to retrieve them before the Aether begins decaying since you'd lose the Breaths if the mass vanishes completely, or lose part of them if only some of it decays by the time you retrieve it.

So far what we have seen of awakening anything like a rock or steel the breaths are impossible to retrieve. This would likely end with a loss of breath?  

What about the spren?  Would the spren be captured and then released as soon as the roseite stopped being fueled?  Would the spren die or just be returned to the world?  

Would breaths be returned to nalthis across the cosmere or back to their awakener? 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

1 minute ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So far what we have seen of awakening anything like a rock or steel the breaths are impossible to retrieve. This would likely end with a loss of breath?

Almost definitely, but maybe not for the reason you're thinking. The Breaths presumably only become irretrievable because the Awakened Construct becomes sentient, but a Type IV Invested Entity is specifically one that has been given sentience, which requires a very complex visualization. Awakening steel or rock without Awakening it to be sentient will likely work like any other Awakening, since there is no sentience and therefore no Identity for the Breath to key to and become irretrievable. However, if you don't retrieve the Breaths before the Aether is allowed to decay, you'll likely lose a massive amount of Breath, because they'll have diffused into the entire object, and as it disintegrates away, the Breath held in those parts will be lost. But before that, so long as you don't create a Type IV Entity, you should be able to retrieve the Breaths easily.

1 minute ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

What about the spren?  Would the spren be captured and then released as soon as the roseite stopped being fueled?  Would the spren die or just be returned to the world? 

It would act like the Polestone breaking, so most likely it would just be set free.

1 minute ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Would breaths be returned to nalthis across the cosmere or back to their awakener? 

They wouldn't return to their Awakener. They certainly won't go to Nalthis, since the planet itself has nothing to do with the Breath. What I think you meant was if it would return to Endowment, and this is possible, but we can't say. We don't know whether the Breath just remains Invested in the corpse of an Awakener when they die, forever inaccessible to anyone because they're still keyed to their Identity, whether they return to Endowment right at the moment of death, or somewhere in between, where they remain with the corpse until it decomposes, and then return to Endowment rather than remaining with the whatever the individual's decomposed body turns into.

[alder24]

8 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Same question I have with breaths... could an awakener awaken roseite

I don't think it's possible to Awaken a living Aether - it's Prime Aether's essence, through which they are able to sense and see, Aether is certainly invested and thus Awakeneing invested object would be almost impossible.

You could use Breaths to fuel Roseite like it was done with Dor, not by Awakening it however.

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So far what we have seen of awakening anything like a rock or steel the breaths are impossible to retrieve. This would likely end with a loss of breath?  

I think you're wrong. Kalad's Phantoms are a mix of type 2 and type 3 entities. The bones inside are Lifeless, but the stone isn't, and it had to be infused with Breaths to start functioning again - Vasher left them without those Breaths in stone, which means he was able to retrieve his Breaths:

Spoiler

DylanHuebner

I was wondering how the animation of the lifeless statues worked, in regard to the use of Susebron's Breath. If they were lifeless, then vasher wouldn't have been able to take his Breath back out of them, nor would susebron have needed such a great deal of breath to revive them—he just would have needed a password. But if they were simply Awakened, no password would have been necessary to animate the statues, just Breath and Command.

It seems like the statues could be neither lifeless nor awakened. Are they unique, because of the use of bone, or am I missing something? The only other explanation I could think of was that they were lifeless, but Susebron's breath wasn't used to activate the statues, he simply had it passed down from vasher, in addition to the statues. If that's the case(and then I've simply been confusing myself with unnecessary, convoluted logic), why was it necessary to keep the breath safe for all these years?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, there are a lot of questions in there. If you follow the drafts, I think you can see the evolution of what became of the Lifeless army. Originally I had planned for the statues to simply have been placed there so that you could Awaken them—just in my original concepts, before I started the writing—and then that became the army.

I eventually decided that didn't work for various reasons. Number one, as I developed the magic system, Awakening stone doesn't work very well. You've got to have limberness, you've got to have motion to something for it to actually be stronger. So a soldier made out of cloth would be more useful to you than a soldier made out of stone, if you were just Awakening something. At that point, as I was developing this, I went back to the drawing board and said okay, I need to leave him a whole group of really cool Lifeless as the army. But that had problems in that the ichor would not have stayed good long enough. Plus they already had a pretty big Lifeless army, so what was special about this one? Remember, I'm revising concepts like this as the book is going along. You can see where in the story I could see what needed to be there. So I went back to the drawing board again.

I think the original draft of WARBREAKER you can download off my website has them just as statues, though at the time when I was writing that I already knew it would need to change. I was just sticking to my outline because I needed to have the whole thing complete on the page before I could work with it. A lot of times that's how I do things as a writer—I get the rough draft down, and then I begin to sculpt.

I eventually developed essentially what you've just outlined in the first part, before you started worrying if you were too convoluted. I said, well, what if there's a hybrid? What happens if you Awaken bones? Can you create something? The reason that you can't draw the Breath back from a Lifeless is because the Breath clings to it. If the Lifeless were sentient enough, it could give up its own Breath, but you can't take it, just like you can't take a Breath from a person by force. You have to get them to give it up willingly. So it sticks to the Lifeless. A Lifeless is, let's say, 90% of a sentient being. The Breath doesn't manifest in them, because they aren't alive, yet they're almost there. A stone statue brought to life would be way down on the bottom rung.

Is there something in between? That's the advancement I had Vasher discover—what if we build something out of bone, but then encase it in stone to make it strong, and build it in ways that the bone is held together by the force of the Breaths? That's really what you're getting at there, that you need a lot of Breath, a lot of power, to hold all that stone together. There are seams at the joints. What the Breath is doing is clinging there like magical sinew, and it's holding all of that together.

Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid.

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

 

1 hour ago, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

We don't know whether the Breath just remains Invested in the corpse of an Awakener when they die, forever inaccessible to anyone because they're still keyed to their Identity, whether they return to Endowment right at the moment of death, or somewhere in between, where they remain with the corpse until it decomposes, and then return to Endowment rather than remaining with the whatever the individual's decomposed body turns into.

I think because of how Lemex's death looked like, throwing waves of BioChroma around, Breaths are certainly going back to Endowment after death, and they don't stay in the body. Breaths are innate investiture, they are still a part of the soul, and soul is separated from the body in the moment of death. And this WoBs busts your theory  

Spoiler

Yata

When someone dies on Nalthis, their Breaths: go away with the soul, or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

Breaths return to Endowment.

Yata

Together with the soul? Or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

The soul--

Yata

Passes away?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, unless it turns into a Cognitive Shadow. Then, the soul goes into the Beyond. And so the actual essence of the soul, the Investiture of it, does return to Endowment.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I don't think it's possible to Awaken a living Aether - it's Prime Aether's essence, through which they are able to sense and see, Aether is certainly invested and thus Awakeneing invested object would be almost impossible.

You could use Breaths to fuel Roseite like it was done with Dor, not by Awakening it however.

I think you're wrong. Kalad's Phantoms are a mix of type 2 and type 3 entities. The bones inside are Lifeless, but the stone isn't, and it had to be infused with Breaths to start functioning again - Vasher left them without those Breaths in stone, which means he was able to retrieve his Breaths:

  Hide contents

DylanHuebner

I was wondering how the animation of the lifeless statues worked, in regard to the use of Susebron's Breath. If they were lifeless, then vasher wouldn't have been able to take his Breath back out of them, nor would susebron have needed such a great deal of breath to revive them—he just would have needed a password. But if they were simply Awakened, no password would have been necessary to animate the statues, just Breath and Command.

It seems like the statues could be neither lifeless nor awakened. Are they unique, because of the use of bone, or am I missing something? The only other explanation I could think of was that they were lifeless, but Susebron's breath wasn't used to activate the statues, he simply had it passed down from vasher, in addition to the statues. If that's the case(and then I've simply been confusing myself with unnecessary, convoluted logic), why was it necessary to keep the breath safe for all these years?

Brandon Sanderson

Wow, there are a lot of questions in there. If you follow the drafts, I think you can see the evolution of what became of the Lifeless army. Originally I had planned for the statues to simply have been placed there so that you could Awaken them—just in my original concepts, before I started the writing—and then that became the army.

I eventually decided that didn't work for various reasons. Number one, as I developed the magic system, Awakening stone doesn't work very well. You've got to have limberness, you've got to have motion to something for it to actually be stronger. So a soldier made out of cloth would be more useful to you than a soldier made out of stone, if you were just Awakening something. At that point, as I was developing this, I went back to the drawing board and said okay, I need to leave him a whole group of really cool Lifeless as the army. But that had problems in that the ichor would not have stayed good long enough. Plus they already had a pretty big Lifeless army, so what was special about this one? Remember, I'm revising concepts like this as the book is going along. You can see where in the story I could see what needed to be there. So I went back to the drawing board again.

I think the original draft of WARBREAKER you can download off my website has them just as statues, though at the time when I was writing that I already knew it would need to change. I was just sticking to my outline because I needed to have the whole thing complete on the page before I could work with it. A lot of times that's how I do things as a writer—I get the rough draft down, and then I begin to sculpt.

I eventually developed essentially what you've just outlined in the first part, before you started worrying if you were too convoluted. I said, well, what if there's a hybrid? What happens if you Awaken bones? Can you create something? The reason that you can't draw the Breath back from a Lifeless is because the Breath clings to it. If the Lifeless were sentient enough, it could give up its own Breath, but you can't take it, just like you can't take a Breath from a person by force. You have to get them to give it up willingly. So it sticks to the Lifeless. A Lifeless is, let's say, 90% of a sentient being. The Breath doesn't manifest in them, because they aren't alive, yet they're almost there. A stone statue brought to life would be way down on the bottom rung.

Is there something in between? That's the advancement I had Vasher discover—what if we build something out of bone, but then encase it in stone to make it strong, and build it in ways that the bone is held together by the force of the Breaths? That's really what you're getting at there, that you need a lot of Breath, a lot of power, to hold all that stone together. There are seams at the joints. What the Breath is doing is clinging there like magical sinew, and it's holding all of that together.

Vasher left the Phantoms Invested with enough Breath to hold them together but not to move. You needed another big, substantial influx of Breath in order to actually make them have motion, to bring them enough strength to move and that sort of thing. So it's kind of a hybrid.

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

 

I think because of how Lemex's death looked like, throwing waves of BioChroma around, Breaths are certainly going back to Endowment after death, and they don't stay in the body. Breaths are innate investiture, they are still a part of the soul, and soul is separated from the body in the moment of death. And this WoBs busts your theory  

  Hide contents

Yata

When someone dies on Nalthis, their Breaths: go away with the soul, or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

Breaths return to Endowment.

Yata

Together with the soul? Or remain in the corpse?

Brandon Sanderson

The soul--

Yata

Passes away?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, unless it turns into a Cognitive Shadow. Then, the soul goes into the Beyond. And so the actual essence of the soul, the Investiture of it, does return to Endowment.

Oathbringer London signing (Nov. 28, 2017)

 

Oh, nice! So we do know that Breaths return to Endowment. I thought it was unconfirmed, and there was a WoB somewhere asking if Nalthis was incredibly Invested due to people with Breaths dying on it, so I wasn't sure. I'm not sure what you mean by my theory, I only outlined possible things that happen to the Breath post-mortem: They return to Endowment, stay locked in the body, or stay with the body until it decomposes and then return to Endowment. There was a whole other section that I cut from my post before uploading it with what ram-shackle proof I could get my hands on based on the book that Breaths return to Endowment (because that's what I personally believed), but I decided it was too convoluted to be worth anything. I'd looked at Lemex's death to see if his color aura weakened as he died, but I had no idea what to make of the pulsing, so instead I looked to Arsteel being Awakened back into a Lifeless, which would have been harder to do if his corpse held Breath (which we know it did, since that's how Vasher killed him) but there were too many unknown variables surrounding his Awakening that I eventually just gave up. I don't know whether to be relieved or offended that there was just a WoB that just hands us the answer outright, but at least now I know for sure what happens to Breaths, so thanks! ^v^

In hindsight, I should have checked the Arcanum, but it usually take so long to dredge up the right WoBs from whatever half-remember words or phrases I keep in the archives of my brain that I just didn't bother this time. Serves me right, I suppose.