Awakening efficiency

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

So we don't exactly know how many breaths it takes to awaken any one specific thing but I was just thinking about efficiency.  Obviously there is nothing more efficient in awakening than a 1 breath lifeless. And we know that if you awaken and create a lifeless from someone who is a professional at X they will retain much of that skill. 

But... its so cringey and unethical in most eyes... I personally have little issues with creating lifeless whitespine as an army and I think a pack of whitespine would do tremendously well at clearing a piece of battle field of enemy soldiers... but the thought of Awakening a squad of lifeless spear-men makes me feel not great.  

I wonder if there is a more optimal candidate.  We see Kalads phantoms. We even see Vasher awaken the clothes on a corpse to use as a meat shield (I think I remember this correctly).  Perhaps that is because in that moment he didn't have time to create and give commands to a lifeless? Had he possessed A-bendalloy in that moment maybe he would have conserved breaths and created a lifeless to fight for him?  

Either way... what are your thoughts on the most efficient fighters from breaths?  Could 1 of Kalad's phantoms take on the equivalent amount of lifeless to the amount of breaths it took to create the phantom itself?  

Do you suppose whitespine have thick enough carapace to be more efficient as soldiers per breath spent?  

If you had enough breath to awaken 1 of kalads phantoms or an equivalent amount of lifeless what would you awaken?  What would you choose to make into lifeless bodyguards to back you up?  

[therunner he/him]

55 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Could 1 of Kalad's phantoms take on the equivalent amount of lifeless to the amount of breaths it took to create the phantom itself? 

If you had enough breath to awaken 1 of kalads phantoms or an equivalent amount of lifeless what would you awaken?  What would you choose to make into lifeless bodyguards to back you up?  

Kalad's Phantom no question (for me at least). Sure they probably require dozens of Breaths, however as a result they are faster, stronger and sturdier than Lifeless. In fact, they are so sturdy that they basically cannot be harmed by medieval weaponry.
Single Kalad Phantom would probably destroy huge amount of Lifeless. At the end of Warbreaker Phantoms destroy far larger Lifeless army while suffering virtually no losses (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/250/#e7479).

As a bodyguard they would be quite useful as well, as they are effectively bulletproof against small arms, and most likely could take few hits from larger calibers as well.
You could command Phantom to simply pick up you up, shield you and carry you away and they would be quite likely to succeed.

55 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Do you suppose whitespine have thick enough carapace to be more efficient as soldiers per breath spent? 

Depends on how much Breath is required to Awaken them, they can be as large as a horse.
Also, though they would be more resilient to damage, they would have none of the combat instinct of Lifeless (if made from dead soldier), so they would probably require more hands-on commanding.

They would be useful as smart 'traps' or sentries.

Edited December 4, 2023 by therunner

[Treamayne]

49 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So we don't exactly know how many breaths it takes to awaken any one specific thing but I was just thinking about efficiency.  Obviously there is nothing more efficient in awakening than a 1 breath lifeless.

That would depend on your definition of "effiiciency" - since that Breath can never be recovered.

Is a one-breath Lifeless (that will require a lot of maintenance time and money - special thread, replacement ichor-alcohol, etc.) really more efficient that temporary Type 3 constructs. In the long view - given 50 breaths (first heightening) you could have 49 lifeless that will last a few years (less if you fight often, more if you invest significant time and money to maintenance)

- or - 

You could awaken a temprary constuct for what you need, when you need it, and reclaim the breaths when done. Your only monetary investment is sources of color (assuming you don't want to risk a lack of such in the environment) and your only time investment is practicing Commands. And you could potentially continue to do that for as long as you live and retain Breath.

49 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Could 1 of Kalad's phantoms take on the equivalent amount of lifeless to the amount of breaths it took to create the phantom itself?  

Wel, we have some basis for this number. Less than 1000 Phantoms destroyed 40,000 Lifeless - and only took a few casualties. Warbreaker Annotations-Epilogue:

Spoiler

The Phantoms Charge Away

Did they succeed? Yes, they did. The Lifeless were destroyed, and only a couple of the phantoms were lost. That leaves Hallandren with a very powerful army. Fortunately, Siri and Susebron are the ones in charge of it, so things will be all right for a little while at least.

 

[Duxredux he/him]

So there's two different kinds of efficiency here and your options are dependent on how many Breaths you have.

Style 1 is efficency in getting as much firepower for your Breaths, and that's what you're looking at. Creating Lifeless from prepared corpses is the most efficient usage of Breath, particularly if you don't have many to work with in the first place. The skill of the Lifeless is largely dependent on the original person being Awakened - so it's a mixed bag.

Style 2 is recoverability of your Breath. For this style you would rarely if ever utilize Lifeless because you can't retrieve the Breath once it has been Awakened. This is what Vasher uses when Awakening those sets of clothes and he retrieved the Breaths from the fallen sets of clothes easily. Going off of Vasher's Command, these sets can fight with Vasher's skill, removing the uncertainty of Awakening random corpses. Furthermore this allows for greater versatility for Awakening objects to perform tasks that Lifeless cannot, like using ropes as seige catapults, or surviving falling out of buidlings. Lifeless in contrast for peak efficiency require substantial preparation and likely can't efficiently be made on the fly in combat. The bodies would likely have been injured or crippled and the Awakening doesn't heal them.

In summary, it depends on how many Breaths you have, how personally skilled you are in combat (less skilled, buy a mercenary body as a bodyguard), and how much money and preparation time you have. It is telling that Vasher generally preserves his Breath unless he is sending the Awakened entity somewhere he expects it to beirretrievably, or he is winning a war with Phantoms.

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

42 minutes ago, therunner said:

Kalad's Phantom no question (for me at least). Sure they probably require dozens of Breaths, however as a result they are faster, stronger and sturdier than Lifeless. In fact, they are so sturdy that they basically cannot be harmed by medieval weaponry.
Single Kalad Phantom would probably destroy huge amount of Lifeless. At the end of Warbreaker Phantoms destroy far larger Lifeless army while suffering virtually no losses (https://wob.coppermind.net/events/250/#e7479).

As a bodyguard they would be quite useful as well, as they are effectively bulletproof against small arms, and most likely could take few hits from larger calibers as well.
You could command Phantom to simply pick up you up, shield you and carry you away and they would be quite likely to succeed.

Depends on how much Breath is required to Awaken them, they can be as large as a horse.
Also, though they would be more resilient to damage, they would have none of the combat instinct of Lifeless (if made from dead soldier), so they would probably require more hands-on commanding.

They would be useful as smart 'traps' or sentries.

You make an awesome point about the shielding. I imagine that kalads phantoms could be far upgraded beyond what they are as well. We know they are stone with bones in-between.  I'm pictures a sort of concrete pour over bones and then shaped to what you like.  The stone is awakened just to make the joints move. I wonder what purpose the bones play though.  

I am sure if Vasher knew about it he could have placed bones and poured concrete over some rebar enforcements as well?  Or even add some steel plating over the stone?  

I don't know how much good it would do but in theory you could pump enough breath into the stone and metal armoring that the phantoms wear to make them shardproof as well. Which would be real nifty. 

It would be fun to play with the shapes and types of phantom you could make this way.  I assume more mass would require more breath but if you are high enough heightening to awaken stone and metal you probably don't need to worry to much about it. 

45 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

That would depend on your definition of "effiiciency" - since that Breath can never be recovered.

Is a one-breath Lifeless (that will require a lot of maintenance time and money - special thread, replacement ichor-alcohol, etc.) really more efficient that temporary Type 3 constructs. In the long view - given 50 breaths (first heightening) you could have 49 lifeless that will last a few years (less if you fight often, more if you invest significant time and money to maintenance)

- or - 

You could awaken a temprary constuct for what you need, when you need it, and reclaim the breaths when done. Your only monetary investment is sources of color (assuming you don't want to risk a lack of such in the environment) and your only time investment is practicing Commands. And you could potentially continue to do that for as long as you live and retain Breath.

Wel, we have some basis for this number. Less than 1000 Phantoms destroyed 40,000 Lifeless - and only took a few casualties. Warbreaker Annotations-Epilogue:

  Reveal hidden contents

The Phantoms Charge Away

Did they succeed? Yes, they did. The Lifeless were destroyed, and only a couple of the phantoms were lost. That leaves Hallandren with a very powerful army. Fortunately, Siri and Susebron are the ones in charge of it, so things will be all right for a little while at least.

 

 

41 minutes ago, Duxredux said:

So there's two different kinds of efficiency here and your options are dependent on how many Breaths you have.

Style 1 is efficency in getting as much firepower for your Breaths, and that's what you're looking at. Creating Lifeless from prepared corpses is the most efficient usage of Breath, particularly if you don't have many to work with in the first place. The skill of the Lifeless is largely dependent on the original person being Awakened - so it's a mixed bag.

Style 2 is recoverability of your Breath. For this style you would rarely if ever utilize Lifeless because you can't retrieve the Breath once it has been Awakened. This is what Vasher uses when Awakening those sets of clothes and he retrieved the Breaths from the fallen sets of clothes easily. Going off of Vasher's Command, these sets can fight with Vasher's skill, removing the uncertainty of Awakening random corpses. Furthermore this allows for greater versatility for Awakening objects to perform tasks that Lifeless cannot, like using ropes as seige catapults, or surviving falling out of buidlings. Lifeless in contrast for peak efficiency require substantial preparation and likely can't efficiently be made on the fly in combat. The bodies would likely have been injured or crippled and the Awakening doesn't heal them.

In summary, it depends on how many Breaths you have, how personally skilled you are in combat (less skilled, buy a mercenary body as a bodyguard), and how much money and preparation time you have. It is telling that Vasher generally preserves his Breath unless he is sending the Awakened entity somewhere he expects it to beirretrievably, or he is winning a war with Phantoms.

Good points about the cost effectiveness and what you can get in return.  I didn't think about Vashers skill being transfered to the clothing.  I sort of imagined those things working based on just a static ability from breaths.  It makes perfect sense that a skilled fighter awakening and using their knowledge in the intent of creation would make for better phantoms.  (Though now I wonder if a Copper ferring could watch a ton of martial videos and pseudo "upload" all of that imagery into awakening constructs like the matrix.)  

 

[Treamayne]

16 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

The stone is awakened just to make the joints move. I wonder what purpose the bones play though. 

Denth and Vasher (separately) explained this in the book (obliquely). Ch 46:

Spoiler

Ch 21:

Spoiler

Vasher knelt, putting a hand on the creature.

“Awaken to my Breath,” he Commanded, “serve my needs, live at my Command and my word. Fallen Rope.”

Those last words, “fallen rope,” formed the security phrase. Vasher could have chosen anything, but he picked the first thing that came to mind.

One Breath was leached from his body, going down into the small rodent’s corpse. The thing began to twitch. That was a Breath Vasher would never be able to recover, for creating a Lifeless was a permanent act. The squirrel lost all color, bleeding to grey, the Awakening feeding off the body’s own colors to help fuel the transformation. The squirrel had been grey in the first place, so the difference was tough to see. That’s why Vasher liked to use them.

“Fallen Rope,” he said to the creature, its grey eyes looking up at him. The security phrase pronounced, Vasher could now imprint the creature with an order, much as he did when performing a standard Awakening. “Make noise. Run around. Bite people who are not me. Fallen Rope.” The second use of the words closed its impressionability, so it could no longer be Commanded.

Ch 22:

Quote

“All Awakening works by way of the Command, Princess,” Denth said. “You infuse something with life, then give it an order. Lifeless are valuable because you can give them Commands after you create them, unlike regular Awakened objects, which you can only Command once in advance.

Ch 46:

Quote

“You were talking about Lifeless and their Commands?” she prompted.

Vasher nodded. “They need a Command to Awaken them, just like anything else. Even your religion teaches about Commands—it says that Austre is the one who Commands the Returned to come back.”

She nodded.

“Understanding the theory of Commands is tough. Look at Lifeless, for instance. It’s taken us centuries to discover the most efficient ways to bring a body to a Lifeless state. Even now, we’re not sure if we understand how it works.

<snip>

“What about bones?” Vivenna asked.

“They’re strange,” Vasher said. “They take far more Breath to awaken than a body held together with flesh and aren’t as flexible as something like cloth. Still, Breath will stick to them fairly easily, since they were once alive and maintain the form of a living thing.”

“So Idrian stories that talk about skeletal armies aren’t just fabrications?”

He chuckled. “Oh, they are. If you wanted to Awaken a skeleton, you’d have to arrange all the bones together in their correct places. That’s a lot of work for something that will take upwards of fifty or a hundred Breaths to Awaken. Intact corpses make far more sense economically, even if the Breath sticks to them so well that it becomes impossible to recover. Still, I’ve seen some very interesting things done with skeletons which have been Awakened.

 

So, the Phantoms, to work the way they do, have to be Lifeless Skeletons in order to receive orders and commands after the initial Awakening - then the Stone around the Phantoms is Awakened separately, to provide mobility to the Lifeless encased within - but also to allow the breath animating the stone to be withdrawn when they are not in use. 

Also, please note the comment here about 50-100 breaths just to make the Skeleton Lifeless (and that does not include awakening the Stone around the Phantoms) - so in an efficiency analysis: Phantoms were successful in a 40:1 combat against regular lifeless - but at a non-retrievable Breath cost of at least 50:1 as compared to mundane Lifeless. Seems like they might have been a "bargain" before the one-breath Command - but not as efficient afterward. 

17 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I didn't think about Vashers skill being transfered to the clothing.  I sort of imagined those things working based on just a static ability from breaths. 

It was explicit in the Command he used for Awakening (though, it is possible that a Memory was stored in the breath used for that Awakening). Ch 56:

Spoiler

He bent down, slapping his hand against the waist of a fallen soldier, touching both shirt and pants, looping his finger around the colored inner undershirt.

“Fight for me, as if you were me,” he Commanded, draining the man’s undershirt completely grey. Vasher spun, blocking a sword strike. Another came from the side, and another. He couldn’t block them all.

A sword flashed in the air, blocking a weapon that would have hit Vasher. The dead man’s shirt and trousers, having pulled themselves free, stood holding a blade. They struck, as if controlled by an invisible person inside, blocking and attacking with skill.

 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

25 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Denth and Vasher (separately) explained this in the book (obliquely). Ch 46:

  Hide contents

Ch 21:

  Hide contents

Vasher knelt, putting a hand on the creature.

“Awaken to my Breath,” he Commanded, “serve my needs, live at my Command and my word. Fallen Rope.”

Those last words, “fallen rope,” formed the security phrase. Vasher could have chosen anything, but he picked the first thing that came to mind.

One Breath was leached from his body, going down into the small rodent’s corpse. The thing began to twitch. That was a Breath Vasher would never be able to recover, for creating a Lifeless was a permanent act. The squirrel lost all color, bleeding to grey, the Awakening feeding off the body’s own colors to help fuel the transformation. The squirrel had been grey in the first place, so the difference was tough to see. That’s why Vasher liked to use them.

“Fallen Rope,” he said to the creature, its grey eyes looking up at him. The security phrase pronounced, Vasher could now imprint the creature with an order, much as he did when performing a standard Awakening. “Make noise. Run around. Bite people who are not me. Fallen Rope.” The second use of the words closed its impressionability, so it could no longer be Commanded.

Ch 22:

Ch 46:

 

So, the Phantoms, to work the way they do, have to be Lifeless Skeletons in order to receive orders and commands after the initial Awakening - then the Stone around the Phantoms is Awakened separately, to provide mobility to the Lifeless encased within - but also to allow the breath animating the stone to be withdrawn when they are not in use. 

Also, please note the comment here about 50-100 breaths just to make the Skeleton Lifeless (and that does not include awakening the Stone around the Phantoms) - so in an efficiency analysis: Phantoms were successful in a 40:1 combat against regular lifeless - but at a non-retrievable Breath cost of at least 50:1 as compared to mundane Lifeless. Seems like they might have been a "bargain" before the one-breath Command - but not as efficient afterward. 

It was explicit in the Command he used for Awakening (though, it is possible that a Memory was stored in the breath used for that Awakening). Ch 56:

  Hide contents

He bent down, slapping his hand against the waist of a fallen soldier, touching both shirt and pants, looping his finger around the colored inner undershirt.

“Fight for me, as if you were me,” he Commanded, draining the man’s undershirt completely grey. Vasher spun, blocking a sword strike. Another came from the side, and another. He couldn’t block them all.

A sword flashed in the air, blocking a weapon that would have hit Vasher. The dead man’s shirt and trousers, having pulled themselves free, stood holding a blade. They struck, as if controlled by an invisible person inside, blocking and attacking with skill.

 

Thank you for the quotes. "Fight for me, as if you were me." Is pretty much the perfect command in that instance.  I love it. Picturing now an awakener with a few weapons and a few of those morphsuits you see at Halloween and stuff.  Instant popup squad of fighters in your bag at all times... 

I think it is epic for an offensive squad. Not sure I would want to trust protection in the hands of cloth. Probably stick with a phantom or two for that. 

It also makes me wonder... while the clothing probably could not replicate the strength of a pewter arm (unless the material was strong enough) I wonder if it would replicate the speed of one.  What if Vasher were tapping a steel mind moving twice the speed of normal when he awakened that?  Would the shirt and trousers have been able to move at the speed of Vasher at the time he spoke the command or would they gain and lose speed as he is tapping or storing it in real time?  Or would they completely ignore any magical effects that could be adding to his skill when he says that command?  

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

So we don't exactly know how many breaths it takes to awaken any one specific thing but I was just thinking about efficiency.

Around 25 to Awaken a strawman with hair as its focus, and around 25 to Awaken a cloak to protect, with a hair as well. Warbreaker prologue.

Quote

Vasher had around fifty Breaths, just enough to reach the First Heightening. Having so few made him feel poor compared with what he’d once held, but many would consider fifty Breaths to be a great trea sure. Unfortunately, even Awakening a small figure made from organic material—using a piece of his own body as a focus—drained away some half of his Breaths.
[...]
Vasher leaned down, trying not to think of the days when he’d had enough Breaths to Awaken without regard for shape or focus. That had been a different time. Wincing, he pulled a tuft of hair from his head, then sprinkled it across the hood of the cloak.
Once again, he Breathed.
It took the rest of his Breath.
[...]
The cloak jerked. Vasher leaned down. “Protect me,” he Commanded, and the cloak grew still. He stood, throwing it back on.

 

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I wonder if there is a more optimal candidate.  We see Kalads phantoms. We even see Vasher awaken the clothes on a corpse to use as a meat shield (I think I remember this correctly).  Perhaps that is because in that moment he didn't have time to create and give commands to a lifeless?

Not a meat shield, a companion that helps him fight. He did that because creating a Lifeless isn't that good - you not only lose that 1 Breath, but you also have to seal all wounds on the body and make the body's muscles work, sewing them if needed. If you can't do that, Lifeless would require more Breaths to compensate for the damages, which means you would lose more forever. That's why people don't create Lifeless left and right. Breaths are worht a fortune.

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Either way... what are your thoughts on the most efficient fighters from breaths?  Could 1 of Kalad's phantoms take on the equivalent amount of lifeless to the amount of breaths it took to create the phantom itself?  

It takes like 100 of Breaths to Awaken a Phantom, probably even more to make the sinew to make him move. They can take a lot of damage. But 100 normal Lifeless could probably pile on top of a Phantom and immobilize it. ch 46:

Quote

“Type Two BioChromatic entities,” he said, “are what people in Hallandren call Lifeless. They are different from Type One entities in several ways. Lifeless can be created at will, and require only a few Breaths to Awaken— anywhere between one and hundreds, depending on the Commands used— and they feed off of their own color when being Invested. They don’t present an aura when Awakened, but the Breath sustains them, keeping them from needing to eat. They can die, and need a special alcohol solution to remain functional past a few years of Awakened status. Because of their organic host, their Breath clings to the body, and cannot be withdrawn once Invested.”

[...]

“What about bones?” Vivenna asked.
“They’re strange,” Vasher said. “They take far more Breath to awaken than a body held together with flesh and aren’t as flexible as something like cloth. Still, Breath will stick to them fairly easily, since they were once alive and maintain the form of a living thing.”
“So Idrian stories that talk about skeletal armies aren’t just fabrications?” He chuckled.
“Oh, they are. If you wanted to Awaken a skeleton, you’d have to arrange all the bones together in their correct places. That’s a lot of work for something that will take upwards of fifty or a hundred Breaths to Awaken. Intact corpses make far more sense economically, even if the Breath sticks to them so well that it becomes impossible to recover. Still, I’ve seen some very interesting things done with skeletons which have been Awakened."

 

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)

 

2 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

If you had enough breath to awaken 1 of kalads phantoms or an equivalent amount of lifeless what would you awaken?  What would you choose to make into lifeless bodyguards to back you up?  

It depends on my needs. Do I need 1 powerful soldier or a small army? Lifeless can be your servants, a single Phantom not that much. But a single Phantom can last for centuries, a Lifeless for decades at most. Several Phantoms were lost after Susebron sent them and they were outnumbered 40:1. If you equip your Lifeless with hammers, poleaxes and pickaxes, they would destroy a single Phantom, but also suffer some serious losses.

You can also give plate armor to your Lifeless and they would be almost as invulnerable to regular weapons as Phantoms are. A 100 Lifeless in plate armor would be almost unstoppable.

Phantom would be cooler, so I would want that one. 

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I'm pictures a sort of concrete pour over bones and then shaped to what you like. 

Maybe? I wouldn't want to use concrete. I would rather use the best, the hardest and the less brittle type of stone and use it for my Phantoms. I don't know what's better.

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I wonder what purpose the bones play though.  

They're Lifeless... ch 58:

Quote

The stone hasn’t been Awakened,” Vasher said. “There are human bones in those statues. They are Lifeless.”

 

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I am sure if Vasher knew about it he could have placed bones and poured concrete over some rebar enforcements as well? 

You know he didn't create them in our modern time? Sure there was concrete in ancient Rome, but it didn't use rebar. Vasher couldn't use concrete, because he didn't have one.

1 hour ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

I didn't think about Vashers skill being transfered to the clothing.

The better you are at visualization, the better is an Awaken object at fulfilling his command. So yes, he has a lot of experience and his visualization encompasses a lot of his fighting skill -they aren't as good as Vasher is, nor as good as a skilled swordsman is, but they would be really good for a piece of fabric.

 

Well, I wrote this comment while scrolling and reading through this topic, a lot of what I've written here was already said by others, but I'm too lazy to change it so consider this a 

[Tamriel Wolfsbaine]

3 hours ago, alder24 said:

Around 25 to Awaken a strawman with hair as its focus, and around 25 to Awaken a cloak to protect, with a hair as well. Warbreaker prologue.

 

Not a meat shield, a companion that helps him fight. He did that because creating a Lifeless isn't that good - you not only lose that 1 Breath, but you also have to seal all wounds on the body and make the body's muscles work, sewing them if needed. If you can't do that, Lifeless would require more Breaths to compensate for the damages, which means you would lose more forever. That's why people don't create Lifeless left and right. Breaths are worht a fortune.

It takes like 100 of Breaths to Awaken a Phantom, probably even more to make the sinew to make him move. They can take a lot of damage. But 100 normal Lifeless could probably pile on top of a Phantom and immobilize it. ch 46:

 

  Reveal hidden 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)

 

It depends on my needs. Do I need 1 powerful soldier or a small army? Lifeless can be your servants, a single Phantom not that much. But a single Phantom can last for centuries, a Lifeless for decades at most. Several Phantoms were lost after Susebron sent them and they were outnumbered 40:1. If you equip your Lifeless with hammers, poleaxes and pickaxes, they would destroy a single Phantom, but also suffer some serious losses.

You can also give plate armor to your Lifeless and they would be almost as invulnerable to regular weapons as Phantoms are. A 100 Lifeless in plate armor would be almost unstoppable.

Phantom would be cooler, so I would want that one. 

Maybe? I wouldn't want to use concrete. I would rather use the best, the hardest and the less brittle type of stone and use it for my Phantoms. I don't know what's better.

They're Lifeless... ch 58:

 

You know he didn't create them in our modern time? Sure there was concrete in ancient Rome, but it didn't use rebar. Vasher couldn't use concrete, because he didn't have one.

The better you are at visualization, the better is an Awaken object at fulfilling his command. So yes, he has a lot of experience and his visualization encompasses a lot of his fighting skill -they aren't as good as Vasher is, nor as good as a skilled swordsman is, but they would be really good for a piece of fabric.

 

Well, I wrote this comment while scrolling and reading through this topic, a lot of what I've written here was already said by others, but I'm too lazy to change it so consider this a 

Any ninja that speaks more about awakening is cool with me. Thanks for all of the quotes. For some reason I thought I remembered most of the awakening that happened to be in the hundreds of breaths for cost. Its a great reminder that the focus needs to be human shaped and organic to be cheaper.  25 breaths for the protect me command on the cloak is a lot less than I thought I remembered (thinking it was in the 300 range). Is that just because he sprinkled hair on it really? Do we not see Awakeners weave hair into all of their clothing for a reason?  Gotta ask about the spider silk too given its newer uses as time is going on. Would a person be able to awaken kevelar if they were to weave enough hairs into it as well?  

For sure the concrete and rebar thing would be out of the question for Vasher. It is interesting to think that the breaths needed only increased based on the weight of the stone to move it. Certainly inorganic materials now available could offer more protection to the phantoms without having near the same weight... perhaps the phantoms could be even cheaper to make with modern day materials given they are lighter and more resilient than just rock? 

Also how do you suppose Vasher got the bones into the rocks? Seems like a nice trick if you could use cohesion and tension to shape the bodies around the bones... 

 

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

25 breaths for the protect me command on the cloak is a lot less than I thought I remembered (thinking it was in the 300 range). Is that just because he sprinkled hair on it really?

A hair and a human shape both made it much cheeper. Hair gives a lot.

4 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Do we not see Awakeners weave hair into all of their clothing for a reason? 

Time consuming and laziness. When you have so many Breaths like Vasher or Vivenna you stop caring about those things. Plus Brandon wanted to make action more dynamic.

Spoiler

Brandon Sanderson

Vasher Awakens the Straw Figure

I love how intricate and delicate Vasher is in creating the straw figure. The little eyebrow is a nice touch, and forming the creature into the shape of a person has a nice resonance with our own world's superstitions.

Voodoo dolls, for instance. This is very common in tribal magics and shamanistic rituals—something in the figure of a person, or the figure of the thing it's supposed to affect, is often seen as being more powerful or more desirable. The same is said for having a drop of blood or a tiny piece of skin, even a piece of hair.

Those two things—making the doll in the shape of a man and using a bit of his own body as a focus—are supposed to create instant resonance in the magic for those reading it. I think it works, too. Unfortunately, there's a problem with this, much like with the colors above. In later chapters, the characters are generally powerful enough with the magic that they don't have to make things in human shape or use pieces of their own body as a focus.

If I were to write a sequel to the book (and I just might—more on this later) I'd want to get back to these two aspects of the magic. Talk about them more, maybe have characters who have smaller quantities of Breath, and so need to use these tricks to make their Awakening more powerful.

Anyway, this little scene threw all kinds of problems into the book. Later on, I had to decide if I wanted to force the characters to always make things into the shape of a person before Awakening them. That proved impossible, it was too limiting on the magic and interfered with action sequences. The same was true for using bits of their own flesh as focuses. It just didn't work.

I toyed with cutting these things from the prologue. (Again, they are artifacts from the short story I wrote, back when Awakening wasn't fully developed yet.) However, I like the resonance they give, and think they add a lot of depth to the magic system.

So I made them optional. They're things that you can do to make your Awakenings require fewer Breaths. That lets me have them for resonance, but not talk about them when I don't need them. I still worry that they set up false expectations for the magic, however.

Warbreaker Annotations (July 8, 2010)

 

6 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Would a person be able to awaken kevelar if they were to weave enough hairs into it as well?  

No. 1 hair is the focus, adding more won't make it any cheaper.

8 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

For sure the concrete and rebar thing would be out of the question for Vasher. It is interesting to think that the breaths needed only increased based on the weight of the stone to move it. Certainly inorganic materials now available could offer more protection to the phantoms without having near the same weight... perhaps the phantoms could be even cheaper to make with modern day materials given they are lighter and more resilient than just rock? 

Why make them lighter when their heavy weight is a positive feature during a fight? You can just pour a solid metal statue. 

11 minutes ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Also how do you suppose Vasher got the bones into the rocks? Seems like a nice trick if you could use cohesion and tension to shape the bodies around the bones... 

He likely hired stonemasons/sculptors to create statues made out of parts with holes for bones. He Awakened it and Breaths held it all together. The description of Phantoms mentioned excellent craftsmanship and detailed work. He could melt stone and pour it into molds, then make sculptors carve details on it, but I doubt it, this would likely destroy bones. So it's most likely the first option, a hand made out of 2 parts - palm side and dorsal side - with bones in between, a joint/wrist for a movement, which is attached to an arm, all held together by Breaths.

 

[Duxredux he/him]

So... unless you've setup an entire religion and Pantheon designed around sustaining Returned, getting Breath is either hard or expensive. When Jewels sold her Breath it was enough money to pay for a family of 8 for nearly year. In terms of the equivalent  cost of living in a metro area in the U.S. for a poor family, that might be the equivalent of a Porsche per Breath. Now they live in a different era and different costs of living, but it's still a lot. A Lifeless servant is expensive, particularly when you consider the opportunity cost of life extension via Heightening. It's why Vasher's stunt in killing Denth was so unthinkable.

Now Awakening is generally more accessible than Allomancy or becoming an Elantrian, but that's like saying being a millionaire is more accessible than being born a native Icelander. The scale needed for Kalad's Phantoms and the Lifeless Army of Hallendren is immense. Having the first or second Heightening gets you into the Court of Gods in Hallendren by default because you're pretty much walking around flaunting your millionaire status. Almost by definition you are one of the powerful elite if you can afford that many Breaths.

This is one of the reasons that efficiency for Breath utilization and recovery is so important. Vasher and Vivenna are the two most active Awakeners we see and both are very blasé with their Breath, but then neither had to actively collect all the Breaths we see them use. The cost to make a Phantom if it's 50-100 Breaths might be enough to build you a decent house complete with wall and moat, or hire an entire security force. Vivenna didn't know how to get rid of them and Vasher needs them to survive, and so they collect and use them.

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, Tamriel Wolfsbaine said:

Its a great reminder that the focus needs to be human shaped and organic to be cheaper.  25 breaths for the protect me command on the cloak is a lot less than I thought I remembered (thinking it was in the 300 range). Is that just because he sprinkled hair on it really?

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

A hair and a human shape both made it much cheeper. Hair gives a lot.

It's more than both the hair and the shape, Vasher's cloak is specifically crafted to assist his Awakening (Warbreaker Prologue):

Spoiler

Vasher pulled off his cloak and set it on the floor. It was the perfect shape of a person—marked with rips that matched the scars on Vasher’s body, its hood cut with holes to match Vasher’s eyes. The closer an object was to human shape and form, the fewer Breaths it took to Awaken.

Like using the "Fight for me, as if you were me" Command - the "Protect me" cloak is designed to mimic Vasher himself - just facing backward when worn.

[alder24]

11 hours ago, Treamayne said:

It's more than both the hair and the shape, Vasher's cloak is specifically crafted to assist his Awakening (Warbreaker Prologue):

  Hide contents

Vasher pulled off his cloak and set it on the floor. It was the perfect shape of a person—marked with rips that matched the scars on Vasher’s body, its hood cut with holes to match Vasher’s eyes. The closer an object was to human shape and form, the fewer Breaths it took to Awaken.

Like using the "Fight for me, as if you were me" Command - the "Protect me" cloak is designed to mimic Vasher himself - just facing backward when worn.

I've always thought those rips on his cloak were because it didn't stop a strike - a sword pierced the cloak and wounded Vasher in those spots.

Edited December 5, 2023 by alder24

[Treamayne]

16 minutes ago, alder24 said:

I've always thought those rips on his cloak were because it didn't stop a strike - a sword pierced the cloak and wounded Vasher in those spots.

If that were the case, why describe them as "rips matching scars" as opposed to "scarred where the cloak was ripped" (or similar). The rips matching his scars (which are no longer there when he releases his divine breath) seems too deliberate a phrasing, especially when coupled with the "Holes in the hood to match his eyes."

At least, that was my take-away from the passage. 

[alder24]

14 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

If that were the case, why describe them as "rips matching scars" as opposed to "scarred where the cloak was ripped" (or similar).

Because that's what happens when a sword pierces your body through clothes, you have rips in the same position where wounds are, and this is a more poetic description. For me this is an indication that Vasher fought a lot in his live, so much that he not only has scars, but he doesn't bother with changing his clothes anymore, thus they're ripped in the same places where he was wounded.

16 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

The rips matching his scars (which are no longer there when he releases his divine breath)

??? ch 58:

Quote

Vasher closed his eyes. He didn’t speak, didn’t use his Breath or make a Command. Yet suddenly, he started to glow. Not as a lantern would glow, not as the sun glowed, but with an aura that made colors brighter. Vivenna started as Vasher increased in size. He opened his eyes and adjusted the wrap at his waist, making room for his growth. His chest became more firm, the muscles bulging, and the scruffy beard on his face retreated, leaving him clean- shaven.
His hair turned golden. He still bore the cuts on his body, but they seemed inconsequential. He seemed . . . divine.
[...]
Vasher looked at her. It was him. The same look to the face, the same expressions. He hadn’t changed shape to look like someone else. He just looked like a Returned version of himself. What was going on?

No mention of his scars. His fresh wounds stayed, his scars might have stayed as well, but it's possible that he can easily vanish them in his Returned form, but in his normal form he sees himself as scared from all those fights, thus he has scars. He fought as human, not Returned (at least after Manywar).

21 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

The rips matching his scars (which are no longer there when he releases his divine breath) seems too deliberate a phrasing, especially when coupled with the "Holes in the hood to match his eyes."

Possible. I've never seen it that way. Holes for eyes in the hood might bring an object closer to a human form - eyes are very important in Cosmere, they are a reflection of the human soul (especially visible with CR and Vessels). But there is no hole for mouth, or ears - if rips for scars makes Awakening cheaper, holes for mouth and ears would make it even more cheaper. So either eyes matter because of the connection to the human soul and no other "holes" matter, or ALL holes in the body matter and placing them on an Awakened object would make it cheaper - a hole for a mouth would count.

Or holes for eyes are there because when he puts on his hood, he looks like Batman  

[Treamayne]

8 minutes ago, alder24 said:

No mention of his scars. His fresh wounds stayed, his scars might have stayed as well, but it's possible that he can easily vanish them in his Returned form, but in his normal form he sees himself as scared from all those fights, thus he has scars. He fought as human, not Returned (at least after Manywar).

Exactly, I feel if he was scarred in that form, it would have been in the description (both Siri and Vivenna should have noted scars showing on a Returned) and the lack of their mention implied (at least to me) that the scars only show with the ivine breath surpressed (because he feels he should have scars - just as he feels he should be unshaven - at least subconciously). 

11 minutes ago, alder24 said:

But there is no hole for mouth, or ears - if rips for scars makes Awakening cheaper, holes for mouth and ears would make it even more cheaper. So either eyes matter because of the connection to the human soul and no other "holes" matter, or ALL holes in the body matter and placing them on an Awakened object would make it cheaper - a hole for a mouth would count.

Or, the hood is not big enough to represent a nose and mouth. Ears may be less a hole than a protusion, and may be neglected for that. Or, it may be that the state of the cloak is "as cheap as it gets." 

Without a WoB, we don't have enough data - and it is fine if we disagree (like so many other topics upon which we agree to disagree). To me, the combination of:

• Specific wording - "marked with rips that matched the scars on Vasher’s body" - implies the scars came first and the cloak was "marked" to match
• Scar rips noted in conjunction with Eye Holes
• No Scars in Returned form
  • Also unlikely a Returned would scar at all (supressed DBreath or not), unless the scars were part of their supressed Cognitive Identity
• We see the Cloak catch swords and arrows without ripping or being pierced

Any one or two of those and I might have discounted it as coincidence, but Sanderson is a tricksy Hobbit, and taken all together it implies to me that the cloaks rips are deliberate and meant to aid in that specific Awakening (if not in general). 

[alder24]

1 minute ago, Treamayne said:

Exactly, I feel if he was scarred in that form, it would have been in the description (both Siri and Vivenna should have noted scars showing on a Returned) and the lack of their mention implied (at least to me) that the scars only show with the ivine breath surpressed (because he feels he should have scars - just as he feels he should be unshaven - at least subconciously). 

Or because he didn't change his appearance that much, he was still himself, no mention of them implies they are still there, especially if you consider that wounds stayed and this part: "He hadn’t changed shape to look like someone else. He just looked like a Returned version of himself."

No mention of scars means no data. We can't conclude that it means something, Vivenna would know and notice his lack of scars, she saw him without his shirt multiple times. For me this suggests a bit more that his scars are still there.

4 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Without a WoB, we don't have enough data - and it is fine if we disagree.

True. I wanted to simply say that I've never looked at this that way. I've never thought of that. I find your interpretation possible now, but because of lack of data, it's one explanation of many.

6 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

• Specific wording - "marked with rips that matched the scars on Vasher’s body" - implies the scars came first and the cloak was "marked" to match

For me this specific wording means the complete opposite.

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

No Scars in Returned form

No mention of scars. This is a significant difference. 

10 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

• We see the Cloak catch swords and arrows without ripping or being pierced

It's still a fabric, It can catch a sword, but two or three at the same time? It has huge limitations. It isn't a perfect protection.

 

[Treamayne]

1 minute ago, alder24 said:

True. I wanted to simply say that I've never looked at this that way. I've never thought of that. I find your interpretation possible now, but because of lack of data, it's one explanation of many.

Yeah, that's why in my first post (this topic, this thread) I presented what I said as if it were "fact." It never occured to me until your response to the post that this was in contention - it seemed so obvious the cloak had been ripped to match his body that I never considered your interpretation. Sorry to portray opinion-as-fact. 

I can see why you interpret it the way you do, though. 

[Duxredux he/him]

I also did not realize this was a point of contention and I assumed it was both. I figured he has been stabbed while wearing that cloak and he deliberately chose not to repair the cloak to improve his Awakening efficiency. My take was that this was a continuation of the primer lesson that Vasher gave Vivenna and this is a deeper application of the Law of BioChromatic Parallelism.

Two possibilities that aren't mutually exclusive that I can see for Type 3 BioChromatic entities. First, that the Law of BioChromatic Parallelism isn't just referring to how closely the object resembles life, but how closely the object resembles the Awakener. Second possibility is that the style of Awakening that Vasher was using like "Upon call, become my fingers and grip that which I must" specifically is made more efficient or easier to visualize when the clothing very closely matches Vasher himself complete with scars. There may even be subtle Connection shenanigans if the clothes have become used to protecting him and imitating his movements because of how long he's worn them. There may even be some of his skin cells and blood soaked into those clothes if that's his combat outfit - echoing him using his own hair as a focus at the beginning of Warbreaker.

[Returned]

The value of a Breath is going to be highly contingent on an awful lot of factors, as @Duxredux described above. These include how many there are floating around (retained within Awakeners), how many can be collected (call that the birth rate on Nalthis, more or less), the wealth available to the would-be purchaser, the intended application (are you stockpiling Breath to stop aging, and don't intend to Awaken things?), and the skill of the purchaser (Vasher can do a lot more with Breaths than most Awakeners, and more efficiently to boot). Some of those relationships aren't so clear, either. Is Breath more valuable to Vasher because he can do more with it, or is it less valuable because he already has a lot and can use a Breath very efficiently?

I think that there are two big factors in terms of the relative value of a Breath for Awakening a Lifeless vs. some other purpose:

1. Not all Lifeless are created equal. This is addressed pretty well above, so no need to rehash the details, but a generic human Lifeless is going to be well below a prime Lifeless soldier as the Returned maintained. Depending on your needs this may not matter, or it may be critically important.
2. Research into Awakening is ongoing, and there isn't a clear ceiling on how good it can get. Vasher is an ancient Awakener and specifically a research scholar of the art, and even within Warbreaker we see him refining Commands to eke out better performance (which seems like a flip side to better Breath efficiency as well). So if one is a scholar working to actively improve their Awakening, or has access to developing knowledge in the field, then an irrecoverable Breath has a really high opportunity cost. Whether it's used to create a Lifeless or is simply lost, an Awakening performed next year could probably require fewer Breaths, do more things, and do them better than an Awakening performed today. For an immortal, like a Returned or person who has reached a sufficient Heightening, the opportunity costs of losing a Breath permanently are high-- inestimably so.

I think that item 2 is the big one. Vasher and Vivenna lead dangerous lives, and so I'm persuaded by Vasher's comment that it's better to lose all of your Breaths and survive danger than to cling to them and die. But those situations aren't obviously ones in which having a Lifeless with you is better than having some other construct. Cosmere powers generally seem to be best when the user is flexible and creative, and permanently investing your Breaths into creatures which require some degree of ongoing maintenance seems inflexible and narrowly focused. Compared to Awakening a straw poppet or cloak, at least.

An Awakener who has the resources to create and maintain high-quality Lifeless minions probably has the resources to deal with a squad of enemy soldiers in other ways as well, so even at one Breath per minion the Awakener can almost certainly do better. If I had either option and was forced to choose one or the other, I would choose the phantom every time.

Edited December 6, 2023 by Returned
Improved formatting, fixed grammar