Tamriel Wolfsbaine Posted August 27, 2023 Posted August 27, 2023 I've always been a fan of The Witcher but thought that 1 awakened blade would be more than enough to carry in the cosmere. But then I was thinking about how silver is used in the cosmere. Now I am curious if you think there is anything that Silver blade would be used for in the cosmere that a shardblade like vivenna's couldnt take care of on its own? Would it be worth while for someone to carry both a shardblade and a silver weapon?
alder24 Posted August 27, 2023 Posted August 27, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: I've always been a fan of The Witcher but thought that 1 awakened blade would be more than enough to carry in the cosmere. But then I was thinking about how silver is used in the cosmere. Now I am curious if you think there is anything that Silver blade would be used for in the cosmere that a shardblade like vivenna's couldnt take care of on its own? Would it be worth while for someone to carry both a shardblade and a silver weapon? Possibly, but keep in mind silver is a terrible material for a sword. Pure silver is too soft to make jewelry out of it, not to mention weapons. Even silver used for jewelry would be still too soft to make a weapon out of it. Using such weapons to kill non-physical entities will be fine, but striking it at flesh or even worse, metal would be very bad for silver (and that's ignoring the fact that silver in Cosmere is used up in contact with investiture, having a sword that deteriorates is just bad). I doubt it would be as effective against Shardblades as it is against Shades or spores. Shardblades are resilient even to anti-investiture, they should take a silver blade just fine, possibly experiencing a physical discomfort or pain, but not killing them or damaging significantly more than anti-investiture would. A silver blade crossed with Shardblade would break first before doing any serious damage to that Shardblade. Spoiler TopicCharming2157 Living Shardblades are the physical manifestation of spren. If Moash had used Raboniel's anti-Stormlight charged dagger to stab a spren while in Shardblade form, would it kill the spren? (Like Kaladin forming a Syl shield to guard a stab) Brandon Sanderson Physical form of a spren is going to be more resilient to this. YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021) So use your silver blade to permanently kill spren if you're a terrible person, but Shardblades can at least hurt them too, so you really don't need any silver blades. Spoiler Ace Heat Would it be possible to use an aluminum spike to permanently kill a spren? Brandon Sanderson No, that's not gonna work. Silver, on the other hand, there's some possibility. YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022) Edited August 27, 2023 by alder24
Firesong she/her Posted August 27, 2023 Posted August 27, 2023 The thing is, that Awakened Blades/Shardblades and Silver Blades would do very different things to the target. Silver is purely about disrupting Investiture in a way that can damage or kill Invested Entities, if they are reliant enough on Investiture for their survival, basically, beings that are made of Investiture. Shardblades cut apart the Spiritweb of a person, which can easily kill them. Ultimately, shardblades are far more effective against beings not made of Investiture, but is less effective against beings made of Investiture. Silver is not that effective against most beings, but is very effective against beings made of Investiture, like Shades. However, a silver blade would still be useful due to the fact that Awakened Blades are ludicrously hard to make. Given just how many Breaths you need to be of a high enough Heightening to make one, then on top of that you have to take into account the Commands. It is simply not something an ordinary person can get their hands on. Shardblades are also hard due to the fact you need to get a Spren to agree to bond with you, and then you have to do enough Ideals to gain the ability to use them as a blade, and on top of that, you would be sealed to Roshar until you find out the very difficult way to leave the planet with your Spren. And as Alder said, silver doesn't make the best swords. It is just too soft to make a good weapon. It would only be good due to the cosmerological effects of the metal, but in terms of fighting against those not effected by that, it would be complete rubbish and break too easily. There is a reason you don't see many silver swords in the real world. So, both are very inefficient, albeit in different ways. I guess the best case scenario, where you ignore all the issues with Shardblades being difficult to get and to get outside of Roshar. It would be best to have a shardblade as your main arm, and a silver side-arm to use if you come across something that would be weak too it, and not as your go-to weapon. Furthermore, I would recommend silver-edged with the main body being steel-manganese. If you are a Feruchemist, you could also make the fuller out of pewter or something, for you to be able to pull strength from it. This I feel would actually make it good as a general sword, as it makes up for the weakness of silver by just making it silver-edged with a main body of rather strong steel-manganese alloy. Which I don't think would make it bad at killing Shades and such, as it still uses the silver. That I feel would be the best weapon setup.
Tamriel Wolfsbaine Posted August 28, 2023 Author Posted August 28, 2023 @alder24 @Firesong You guys make a good point about silver and its softness. It also brings up a question I have about some stuff we saw in SA and the Unmade. When Shallan is facing the midnight mother or whatever would some silver weaponry have made that encounter trivial or does it not work that fast? I like the idea of simply putting a silver edge on the weapon, what about silver dust? Is it the Silver alone that damages the invested target or is it needed to be on a blade and to insert it? Could a club coated in some silver dust be as effective against these types of entities? If I were to carry a bottle of oil and oil my weapon then spread a coating of silver dust over the top of it would that weapon need to be bladed in order to be effective or would any silver contact start acting quickly?
Firesong she/her Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: @alder24 @Firesong You guys make a good point about silver and its softness. It also brings up a question I have about some stuff we saw in SA and the Unmade. When Shallan is facing the midnight mother or whatever would some silver weaponry have made that encounter trivial or does it not work that fast? I like the idea of simply putting a silver edge on the weapon, what about silver dust? Is it the Silver alone that damages the invested target or is it needed to be on a blade and to insert it? Could a club coated in some silver dust be as effective against these types of entities? If I were to carry a bottle of oil and oil my weapon then spread a coating of silver dust over the top of it would that weapon need to be bladed in order to be effective or would any silver contact start acting quickly? I would say that Re-Shephir was probably too strong for a silver blade to just trivialize the encounter. It would hurt like heck, but I don't think it would instantly cripple her. But we haven't ever seen how silver effects a being as Invested as an Unmade yet.
alder24 Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: When Shallan is facing the midnight mother or whatever would some silver weaponry have made that encounter trivial or does it not work that fast? Possibly, based on how well silver works on Aethers. But there was a lot of Unmade there, the silver on weapons would run out before Unmade would be killed. 5 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: I like the idea of simply putting a silver edge on the weapon, what about silver dust? Is it the Silver alone that damages the invested target or is it needed to be on a blade and to insert it? Shades just bounce off the silver dust, I think it needs to be pointy. 6 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: Could a club coated in some silver dust be as effective against these types of entities? It would do some damage for sure. 6 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: If I were to carry a bottle of oil and oil my weapon then spread a coating of silver dust over the top of it would that weapon need to be bladed in order to be effective or would any silver contact start acting quickly? The oil would drip down from your blade and with it silver dust. And remember, silver is used up in contact with investiture, the more invested entity you're facing, the more silver you need.
Tamriel Wolfsbaine Posted August 28, 2023 Author Posted August 28, 2023 7 minutes ago, alder24 said: Possibly, based on how well silver works on Aethers. But there was a lot of Unmade there, the silver on weapons would run out before Unmade would be killed. Shades just bounce off the silver dust, I think it needs to be pointy. It would do some damage for sure. The oil would drip down from your blade and with it silver dust. And remember, silver is used up in contact with investiture, the more invested entity you're facing, the more silver you need. What do you think about a handful of silver dust? Thrown in the face like a handful of sand? Maybe I am stretching too far on this one. I wanted to find a way to be effective without a bladed weapon but the more I think about it, some form of silver pointy thing must be the way to go.
alder24 Posted August 28, 2023 Posted August 28, 2023 13 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said: What do you think about a handful of silver dust? Thrown in the face like a handful of sand? Irritating at best.
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